


The Bitter Blood Inside

by Sevent



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Deepthroating, Dubious Consent, Hand Jobs, M/M, Mild Gore, Oral Sex, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Partial Mind Control, Scent Kink, Temporary Character Death, Vampire Bites, Vampire Jaskier | Dandelion, Vampires, minor M/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:40:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 44,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22905628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sevent/pseuds/Sevent
Summary: The course of Jaskier's life is changed forever more, by the hand of a furious vampire.Geralt is there, the only one who might help him in the trials to come. Whether that be to cure him, or kill him, the bard would always trust his decision. It is only himself he can no longer trust.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 561
Kudos: 1794





	1. Turning

**Author's Note:**

> Let me first say: welcome to hell. This here will be a long journey into pain, angst, sex, more pain, more sex, and developing romance. Heed the tags to be added and also the tags inside chapter notes. No major archive warnings to come except the possibility of updating to graphic violence should it happen. That is all! Enjoy??

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Chapter warnings:** Mild gore. Temporary character death (of course).

Jaskier was never meant to be there, in the middle of a warzone.

After the sleepless days of the djinn, Geralt took special care never to put him in harm’s way again. It had been an accident of circumstance, something well out of the witcher’s control, but he still took responsibility. He made sure Jaskier wouldn’t be near any monsters, never along for a hunt. 

Of course the bard would be opposed. Every time they separated and reunited out in the northern roads, they would have another squabble about it. Jaskier insisted on coming along, and Geralt—relenting if only to see him safely to the next destination—would allow him some things. A shared room at the town’s inn. A retelling of the last hunt’s beasts. He would make it so there would be no second djinn incident on his watch. No more unforeseen tests of fate. 

Jaskier was not supposed to be there, when Geralt took a bounty on a vampire in the mountains west of Rivia. 

It was strange, meeting there at the city of his byname. Jaskier had a good laugh about it. Then Geralt confessed he wasn’t even from Rivia, it was just a moniker born from his witcher upbringing, and Jaskier laughed himself _blue._

For a night, Geralt forgot to guard the bard from himself. He forgot the fragility of man, but it was easy to, with how grandiose and trusting the bard was. Years in the witcher’s company and still Jaskier carried himself like a fledgling—young, springy, full of such rosy hope. He kept up with the witcher, whispering witty retorts at every step and turn on the path toward the vampire’s lair. 

Geralt should have known not to expect a simple night. Countless times he’s fallen for his own foolish promise that all will be fine. And it never is.

The contract for the vampire head had been up under royal decree. The witcher is not the only one in Rivia to claim it. Armed men—mercenary bands by the dozen—are up ahead in a clearing before a set of caves causing a ruckus. They’re quarreling about first rights to enter. Someone draws their blade suddenly and the tension in the air builds to a boiling point. Because Jaskier is a determined little lunatic with a death wish, he starts to argue with them about basic courtesies. 

It is then, in the dark of night with only the moon and torches for light, that the _bruxa_ strikes. 

A bruxa is a worse beast than what Geralt had expected. Higher vampires are a class of their own. Brutal, intelligent, inhumanly fast, and worst of all, _immune_ to the sun. Often they keep to themselves away from prying eyes. The higher kind doesn’t need to feed on blood to survive. Which means if there’s a contract for its head, it’s been indulging more than it should. It’s been feeding for fun.

With a feral bruxa, they’re caught in the middle of a fight with no winners. In the chaos that erupts, Geralt loses track of Jaskier. Men crowd against each other, twisted in fear as the bruxa rips into one man’s chest. Her screams burst the eardrums of her closest victims and Geralt can see clearly, even from his distance, how two of them drop like stones, necks bent at unnatural angles. 

Imprudent, all of them. Men are not equipped to kill a higher vampire. Their polished silver swords mean nothing when they have never been trained to fight a creature with such power beyond human capacity. _So much worthless death, all for greed_. Geralt snarls, because that is why these men have come. Mercenaries seeking the king’s coin. And they will die for it, shitting their pants and screaming as the bruxa drains them with a blood-hungry gleam in her eyes. 

But above it all, Geralt is pushing against the fools shouting orders to form a futile wall, because _Jaskier is not beside him._ He cannot see him. He cannot hear him. His stomach flips uneasy searching around the men still standing for a familiar head of hair and he _cannot find him._

The bruxa, shimmering in a half-invisible state, moves from man to man. She gorges herself on the screams of the dying. Silver swords strike at her but without the necessary force behind the blows, all it does is annoy her further into a frenzy. 

For the briefest breath, Geralt catches his name being shouted across the field. In one fluid step, he unsheathes his silver blade and runs for its source. The bruxa’s fate will come soon. 

But upon spotting Jaskier, half-kneeling in front of a dead man, Geralt realizes how close the bard truly is to danger. The vampire had swept up the back of one group and now she is making her way toward them, toward more fresh blood. He is in her way.

One of the men is armed with a crossbow, nocked and ready to fire. But he is too shaken. He aims unsteadily at the beast making her way through the carnage. 

Instead of the bruxa, the bolt flies into Jaskier’s shoulder. He drops with a cry. 

_“Jaskier!”_ Geralt shouts and spins to growl, fire thrumming in his veins to _kill_ the one at fault—

The archer stands still, as if shocked at his own misstep. He’d aimed well, but by his trembling hands the bolt flew far too right to land correctly. And he’d hit an innocent. The crossbow hangs pointed towards the ground. Geralt realizes—the man is accepting his death. His ire leaves him in a breath. 

When he turns his head, what he sees will haunt his every nightmare.

The bruxa, brought to attention by the smell of fresh-spilled blood, is crouched behind Jaskier’s twisted frame. She has three claws stuck deep in his ribs. Blood spreads over his torn doublet, soaks through his shirt like a river of red. But her concern is elsewhere, right at the bard’s neck where finger-length fangs tear into soft, exposed skin. 

She bites deep. Under her cruel touch, Jaskier twitches weakly. There’s tears in his eyes.

Geralt sees red. 

Witchers are trained in the art of control. Every breath, every heartbeat, is a measured task. Losing one’s grip during a hunt is the surest way to die. And so they are well-versed in meditation, in isolating pain and emotions. 

In that moment, he is _rage._ He is a deep sea storm that capsizes an entire armada. There is nothing else Geralt wants to do but to kill that bruxa. 

And the bruxa must see the white-hot fury boiling beneath his skin because she detaches from her prey and rises in one smooth movement. 

By now, the few men still standing have earned a modicum of sense to flee from the monster and the monster hunter. Geralt does not look back at them. He has eyes only for the vampire. 

When she strikes, he sweeps his sword in an arc to stop her claws from tearing at his face. The silver burns twin lines on her palms. She backs to round him lightning fast. 

Geralt is just as quick to riposte. He does not allow her a victorious strike. Her claws spin and cut the air furiously and he catches them every time, the metal digging in with each attempt until the bruxa shrieks from the burns. Her voice is too powerful this close, damning enough that it might just incapacitate him. When the pitch changes into a scream, he stabs the point of his blade up into her throat. That won’t kill her by itself, but it will stop her infernal cries from blowing up his ears. 

The blow to her neck staggers her. Geralt is given a second before the vampire flickers and disappears, but it’s not fast enough that he cannot guess—or hear—where she tries to step. 

His next swing cleaves her head clean off. It thuds on the wetted ground a few feet from where her body drops. Nothing moves.

That will have stopped her for good. Now he can turn to Jaskier and hurry him to a healer. 

“Jas—”

Geralt kneels at Jaskier’s side and touches his open wounds, tenderly, with the intent to lessen the pain. But Jaskier doesn’t flinch away. He doesn't even breathe. His heart is silent inside the cage of his ribs.

He’s dead. 

The words echo in Geralt’s head, so empty and full at the same time. _Jaskier is dead._

Of course he is. A bruxa tore into his neck like he was but a steak of meat, leaving twin gaping stabs into his flesh that spider into black veins drained of life. There is so much blood, it is just as possible that he bled out before the vampire even finished drinking. 

For a long time, Geralt kneels there at his side, his hand still cradled over Jaskier’s wound, frozen in the attempt to staunch the flow of blood. He keeps thinking this is a terrible dream, because Jaskier can’t be dead. 

In all their time together, Geralt had kept the bard at arm's length. For his own good, he’d say. He can perhaps admit now, not because he feared that Jaskier would run himself through a sword or a razor-sharp claw, but because witchers never get to die peacefully. And despite whatever he might have said in the years of their acquaintance, he does think of Jaskier as his friend. Vocal as Jaskier is— _was_ about reciprocating the feeling, Geralt never wanted his own death to cause anyone anguish. He’s never wanted to be more than what he is. A witcher. 

Never, in all this time, had he thought what it would mean should Jaskier die before him. 

Geralt is aware of something growing inside his lungs, threatening to spill out of his throat and before it overwhelms him, he shuts it out. He lets his eyes drift to the surroundings, assessing. All of the brash soldiers that leapt at the chance to kill the beast lie in pools of their own blood. Some of them are broken into pieces. The bruxa’s head sits with her long tangle of midnight hair hiding her slack expression. 

He stands. He will have to call Roach and tie his rotting prize to her saddlebag, for the Rivian lords to see and pay his due. Then there is the matter of Jaskier, because even through the muddled haze of slowed, controlled thoughts, Geralt cannot bear leaving him. Jaskier has friends and family that would give him a proper resting place. He deserves to be buried and mourned.

All he needs is the head, so Geralt unfurls a wave of heat and fire magic at her body. Muted satisfaction. It’s just a flash, witcher signs are pure will with no true power of their own, and yet it still feels like tearing stitches free. Like he’s bleeding from a deep wound no alchemy would mend. 

Roach had been left untied at the lower junction of the mountain, and at his whistle it takes her a good minute to climb. A minute Geralt spends staring intently at nothing, with a decapitated head of black hair in his grip. On the hill, she rounds the corpses and whinnies when she reaches him. Her hooves turn up loose soil in a distressed dance. 

Geralt tries to calm her, so that he may tie the bruxa head into the appropriate rope and cover it with a large rag. It would do no good to have her run off in panic, especially now. At his maneuvering, Roach whips her head back and away. Petting her mane doesn’t work to ease her down. He tries to sign _Axii_ at her next. Anything to have her calm again because if she’s calm then he can at least absorb some of her natural composure onto himself. Seeing her restless has his pulse roaring loudly in his ears. 

“Ger’lt.”

Geralt stops soothing the mare and freezes at the gurgled sound. His gut plummets into his shoes. 

_No._

It sounds again, behind him, and Roach tugs harder against his grasping hands. She wants to flee. The roaring in his veins becomes unbearable.

Geralt begs to gods and devils alike that he is hearing things. It’s just shock, he wills into his mind. It’s loss. It’s everything but the worst of all realities.

Against everything, he turns. 

Jaskier is sitting up on the coppery-scented grass. His eyes are no longer a faint cornflower blue, but a lifeless black chasm rimmed with red, with pupils that reflect the moonlight. Like his own mutated witcher eyes do. 

Jaskier’s face is pulled so painfully, like death had done nothing to lessen the impact of his wounds. For a second, Geralt takes an instinctive step forward, to help, before he catches himself. 

The person before him is no longer Jaskier. It is just a creature reborn of the dead. A ghoul. 

Geralt wields his silver sword once more, poised to strike. Jaskier didn’t deserve this—this _curse_ on his soul. If anything, it is Geralt’s responsibility to seize his unnatural life and give him peace. 

It takes him a moment to notice his sword shakes in his grip. Which is strange, because Geralt cannot remember the last time his hands had shaken so badly that his stance was affected this much. Once, he took an excess of potions and got wrecked with toxic aftereffects. There are a number of scars Geralt could point to when, in the process of getting them, he lost the stable grip of his hands. But never has he lost his nerve _before_ fighting something. 

Killing the thing that is Jaskier would be a mercy. It would be the right thing to do.

“M _hh_ _hurts_ ,” it coughs between gurgling drops of blood from its lips. It looks up at him with such hurt and—he can’t kill it. The thing that is Jaskier calls him again in that tone he's always done before, when looking to the witcher for help, and Geralt _can’t kill him_. 

Witchers are trained in the art of control and to the disappointment of all his predecessors, he lost it. He hears the thing that is Jaskier cry again and his heart cracks into pieces. It would be better, he thinks, that he die instead. 

The thing he cannot replace as Jaskier climbs up on shaky limbs and clammers to him like a weak child. It latches twin fists onto his shoulders and still, he can’t raise his silver sword from where it touches the ground. Geralt drops it outright to hold him up.

Jaskier is dead and yet, he is not dead, because he stands before him wide-eyed and fearful with blood-tears down his face. With something awfully like hunger in his gaze. 

The bruxa had not even laid a finger on Geralt and here he lets Jaskier crowd into the open-ended cut of his suit, where his neck meets his jaw. 

When a sharp-fanged mouth bites deep into the skin there, Geralt goes against all his training and crushes Jaskier closer. 

The new long talons in Jaskier’s hands scratch welts down his armored back. Geralt can hear it, how the leather tears. But he doesn’t care about that. He doesn’t quite care to feel for anything beyond the piercing gnawing of teeth drawing out his life. It might kill him. He doesn’t much care for that either. 

Soon, though—unexpectedly soon—it stops. The teeth recede. He had been prepared for an excruciating death, for the beast in his arms to bite deeper. But the thing that is still Jaskier stops. He leans back on his heels and doesn’t fall by virtue of Geralt’s grip on him. 

The blue is returning to Jaskier’s eyes, and something desperate claws out of Geralt’s mouth when he hears a trembling heart beat where there was a silence, something that makes him keep an iron grip on the dead bard so that he doesn’t stumble and fall. “Jaskier,” he says with such intensity, as he stares back into the growing blue. 

Jaskier’s voice cracks as if parched, but he doesn’t drink more blood. “Geralt, it...what’s happening? It hurt—hurts everywhere.”

“The bruxa,” he starts and the words catch in his tongue. _The bruxa killed you, and then_ I _almost killed you._ It sounds cruel, in the private torment of his mind. So he stops before he can explain. “Come,” Geralt calls instead.

Before they can move, Jaskier touches his cheek right above the bite. His fingers, clawed talons now, feel gently around the edges of the torn skin.

“I’m...did I hurt you?”

The combined fear and alarm there tears something open in Geralt’s chest. He does not want to see the pain in Jaskier’s eyes anymore. Not at the state of himself, and not at Geralt’s own. “I’m fine. But you’re not. We need to go.”

They walk carefully over back to the mare. She stomps a few times but waits at Geralt’s call. 

Jaskier sighs something long and weary beside him. “I’m tired.”

“I know.” Roach flinches when they’re close enough to touch. “Easy, Roach. It’s Jaskier, see. It’s safe.”

The Jaskier he points to has blood running down his mouth and too-long fangs poking out through red-stained lips. 

Geralt has met a number of powerful mages. On the rare occasion, a sentient monster with good intentions. Roach spooks at all of them, but she learns that the ones that Geralt calls _‘safe’_ are not out to harm her. 

It helps that she knows Jaskier, even if she doesn’t recognize his smell anymore.


	2. I: Metamorphosis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Chapter warnings:** Dubious consent (forced arousal). Sexual content (hand jobs, oral sex).

Jaskier’s body is on fire.

It’s not that it burns under his skin, as coals cook in an oven. No, it’s that his body is _warm,_ electrified at the touch. A strange power flows in his veins and it spills out of him uncontrolled. He’s a fire cracking open logs in a campsite, hungry to burn, and there are no stones to keep him from spreading into the forest.

Every squawk of a bird buried in the trees makes Jaskier jerk like someone’s gone and slapped him. It’s made worse by the smells. Wet leather, wet fur. A thick scent like rotten honey hovers in the woodland air. 

But that’s distant. Tolerable like the shit-stained streets of the many capitals of the kingdoms. Worse is what drifts right under his nose. His doublet, it _reeks_ of old iron, blood caked under his armpit in the shape of a broken wing. Something similar in smell-taste gathers over his tongue and he swallows. 

It’s _nauseating,_ the realization. His clothes are ruined from lying in a pool of his own blood. So are his fingernails which curve and thicken at the tip into talons. 

Jaskier blinks up to the moon. Clawed hands clench around Geralt’s middle, keeping himself centered. They’re riding Roach, he has to remember. Going down the mountain to return to the city for Geralt to claim the bounty on the bruxa’s head. Whatever _this_ is will pass. He’s not dead. 

He’s not dead, and yet the blood still drying on his chest says he should be. The pain that still radiates from his neck bothers him greatly. He’d asked Geralt what had happened—his memory cuts into fragments after meeting the mercenaries, everything becomes a blur. But Jaskier is not given a proper answer. At the witcher’s request, he reserves his energy and concentrates on staying awake, on breathing. 

It’s hard to concentrate with the pain, but Jaskier tries.

Reaching the city is faster on the downhill slope. At the midnight hour, no one walks the streets besides a lone guard working his rounds. The man doesn’t spare them a look, in the dark. And Geralt’s covered Jaskier with a heavy cloak. To keep him warm, he’d said. With the fire pounding in his bloodstream, Jaskier doubts he needs help keeping _warm._

He accepts the cloak anyway, more for the solace it provides against all the foul smells assaulting him. 

At the stables, Geralt dismounts first. He then leads Roach to an unoccupied stall, away from the stable’s gate. “Here,” Geralt says to him once his mare is secure with a full trough. “Hold onto me. I’ll pull you down.”

Jaskier offers a nod and follows Geralt’s supporting grasp. The pain has faded to an ache deep in his bones, so he is capable of lifting himself from the saddle on shaking hands, at least. Any more is a bit too much for him. Geralt helps him the rest of the way through to the ground. 

There, Jaskier stands on unsteady feet. He feels winded. 

“Jaskier. You good?”

“I-I think so.” On standing up straight, his injured side wakes to protest. _“Gods above that stings_ —alright, well. Not as good.”

“Come.” At that, Geralt wraps his cloak around him again and pulls him tight against one sturdy arm so Jaskier won’t fall on a wobbly step. They take it slow, and at this hour, no one will trouble them on the way to the inn beside the stables. It’s just sleeping drunks down by the tavern side and the innkeeper’s son counting the casks of beer for tomorrow's patrons. 

The way to their rented rooms is a taxing climb. Too many steps in a narrow hallway. They can’t take them side by side so Jaskier goes first, clinging to the walls as a full body shiver takes him by surprise.

But it’s not terrible enough that he can’t do it, and the closer they get to a bed, the more motivation propels him forward. That molten fire in his core is worth something because even tired and aching his feet carry him up to the last step and beyond. Once in the room though, that energy leaves him altogether. He has to stumble to the bed before he ends up collapsing on the floor. 

Geralt does make things easier for him. He takes the cloak from Jaskier’s shoulders and lays it by his feet. His shoes, too, are taken off for him. It’s an odd night. Usually he’s the one doing this for Geralt after a beast manages to bury its claws in him. 

It’s nice, for a change. Being taken care of. He can feel himself drifting to sleep. 

“Jaskier,” comes Geralt’s grumble of a voice before he can. A hand presses hot on his wrist. “Throw away those clothes first. I need to see to your wounds.” 

The reminder makes the one in his neck throb and he winces. It’s a reasonable request. 

A shame, though. This was one of his favorite sets to wear on the road.

Jaskier sits up with a grunt to work the many buttons he wears free. First it’s the doublet. The chemise is harder to take off without pulling on the side that’s stuck to his skin, right over his tender ribs. For that, he takes some time, hissing when clumps of dried blood flake onto the bed. The pants, he leaves on. It’s only speckled with a few red droplets. And the effort to undress has drained him numb. Geralt hums with a frown where he stands, but allows Jaskier to rest on his good side. 

The position means he has to face away from the witcher. He catches the tinkering sound of Geralt fishing around his medical bag for bandages and human-safe salves, and is wholly startled when chilled fingers, slicked with a numbing agent, prod the edges of torn skin. 

A low hiss escapes him at the ice-burn sensation. Jaskier tries very hard to stay still while Geralt covers the proper places in salve. Afterwards, it’s a slow bandaging process where he has to lift himself up on an elbow. Through all of it, Jaskier remains tight-lipped. 

He only breaks the silence once the last knot of bindings is flattened over his hip. 

“Geralt, tell me, please. Is...is it bad?”

Geralt doesn’t answer him for a good long second. He settles on, “It’s better than it was,” which isn’t that much of an answer. “Rest. It will help if you sleep.”

Jaskier sighs, laying back down and hugging his sides. “Alright.” The salve is already working under the skin. The pain cuts off in increments. The first to go is the soreness in his neck. He’s still facing away from Geralt, so he can’t see the witcher’s expression. He can’t judge if Geralt is lying to ease both their worrying, or if he’s truly relieved. “Alright,” Jaskier repeats, more for himself.

Before he closes his eyes—well on their way to slipping shut already—something bulky drapes over him. It’s the bedspread, covering him from his toes up to his chin. A hand smooths the fabric down. Geralt’s voice rumbles so close.

“I’ll wait until you fall asleep before going to the lordship’s hall.” 

Jaskier hums in gratitude. He really doesn’t want to drift off alone, not after the vampire’s attack. He might have forgotten most of the fight, but he can still see her red-rimmed eyes hovering over him. He can feel her long hook-shaped fingers pressing deep under his ribs.

His own fingertips twitch at the faint memory, and briefly, he blanches at the image of them under the moonlight. Hooked. 

“Geralt,” he calls to the room. Wood creaks in protest behind him. “Could...could you grab the cloak too? It’s—I would sleep better with it, please.”

He cannot quite put to words how he misses its scent already, amidst the sweat that lingers in the air and the stench of horseshit that, somehow, comes through the shuttered windows. His own clothes are tainted by blood and that, too, disturbs him. How he can still smell it. It’s maddening. Like he can’t escape its haunting presence. 

Thankfully, the cloak soon comes from where it rested at his feet, now placed over his head like a shield for the outside world. 

It is an immediate comfort. “Thank you.”

He drifts off so easily after that.

Come morning, Jaskier wakes to a freezing bed.

Parting the cloak from his eyes, he sees the window is still closed. A candle burns low to a thin wick, barely kept from dying. The bedspread has not been moved from its place, covering him up to his face. 

And yet, he shivers under its weight. The dreadful feeling from last night—so much blood pouring from him, the utter agony and then, _nothing_ —returns tenfold. It is the kind of cold that sets in after a cold bath in a river. Inescapable. The old heat that thrummed inside his veins last night is lost, nowhere to be found.

Jaskier is not given much time to contemplate these things as the door opens and Geralt barrels through. He looks stoic, a model of aloofness. When he meets Jaskier’s gaze, however, his expression shudders into something between irritation and misery. On the witcher’s face, Jaskier knows it to be concern. 

“Morning,” Jaskier croaks, curling his knees to his chest in an attempt to warm himself up. “Ah. Is it morning actually?”

He can’t quite tell with the shutters closed tight over the room’s windows. There’s an inkling of light through the edges, so it must be light out, he thinks. 

“Not yet,” Geralt says. “But it will be in a bit.”

Jaskier frowns. He won’t argue, but it does leave him confused.

“The Rivian lords paid up double the contract’s original price,” Geralt adds, which takes Jaskier’s attention away from the light. “Apparently the mercenaries hurried to inform them of their heavy losses, probably looking for compensation. Guess after their horror stories they were so relieved to be rid of the vampire that everyone got _something_ out of it.”

“That’s great, isn’t it? You’ve earned more than enough to travel comfortably for some time. The circumstances are a bit unfortunate.” At that, Jaskier grimaces at his own condition. There’s no pain. He hopes that means the witcher’s medicine is working. 

But there’s that nagging feeling again, and it piles onto all the other odd things he can’t quite overlook. The cold inside him, the unpleasant smells seeping back now that he’s not under Geralt’s thick cloak. The elongated fingernails he can no longer ignore.

The vague impression of hunger tickling the back of his throat.

“Geralt, um.” He’s not sure how to go about having this conversation. Only that it must happen if he wants to calm the slowly-building panic before it explodes. “Now that we are in the safety of a rented room and all, I’m—well, I’m a bit _worried,_ I suppose is the right word for it. About what happened with the, uh, bruxa?”

His hands, when he lifts them up to inspect them, are shaking. He is more than ‘worried’ now, becoming genuinely scared. More so because something horrible happened, to _him,_ and he cannot remember what it was. He cannot remember why something _in him_ is different. 

Geralt crosses the room to sit at the bed. He takes one of Jaskier’s trembling hands and lays it flat over his palm, the touch so warm and welcome. 

He looks so serious when he asks Jaskier without preface, “Are you hungry?”

Jaskier blinks, and nods. “Only a little. But we can skip the bread for the time being, just. Please explain why my hands are like this. They weren’t this way before. It is not a fashion to my taste and I do not understand how it could happen overnight.”

An unnerved edge colors his words, and the longer Geralt stares at the bard’s hand caught in his grip, the more Jaskier wishes to peel out of his skin and scream. He wants to clip his nails, but they’re not—they don’t _look_ right. They don’t look _human._ Can he even clip them down?

“Geralt, please.”

Geralt seems to understand the terror unfolding inside the stricken bard. With a heavy look, he sighs, “Alright.” 

He starts before the beginning. Jaskier hangs on his every word. 

“The bruxae are a class of powerful higher vampires. Classifying higher vampires is difficult, they are all in possession of unique abilities. But bruxae are exceptional in their womanoid appearance and in their skill with invisibility. It makes them tricky to hunt, though usually with higher vampires it’s not necessary.”

“What—what does that mean, not necessary?”

“Higher vampires aren’t just intelligent.” There, the witcher’s hand twitches. It’s the slightest move of his knuckles. “They’re sentient. A race of their own. Very few of them go mad and need to be hunted down.”

Jaskier furrows his brow, thinking that over. A race of their own? Like elves and dwarves? The idea seems almost ludicrous. Vampires are bloodsuckers after all. But, having spent years crisscrossing Geralt’s witchering path, he ought to know not to judge every monster for what is popularly believed. “Then, that one, the bruxa. It...went mad?”

“More than that.” There’s a long, dark silence where Geralt simply clenches his hand over Jaskier’s fingers, yellow eyes cast downward. It doesn’t feel comforting. Jaskier worries Geralt will cut himself on his— _beastly, ugly_ —nails.

It is worse when Geralt opens his mouth again, his voice somber and far too rough with a strain Jaskier cannot place. 

“It killed you.”

A breath is kicked out of him. Jaskier is—he’s not sure _what_ he is, with that declaration. What to do with it. Because, what does it _mean,_ that the bruxa killed him? That he is—dead? That cannot be true. He yet breathes, and bleeds. He is sitting right there with Geralt, having just slept for a few hours. Dead people don’t _wake up._

He looks down at their clasped hands— _so much blood pouring from him, the utter agony and then—_ nothing makes sense. 

“Geralt,” the name rolls off his tongue like lead, “Don’t take this the wrong way. But I feel very much, uh, alive. While I trust your words, you understand my confusion?”

The look Geralt gives him is almost sad. Geralt rarely has reason to look sad about things. Angry? Plenty of that. But _sad?_ It is a rare enough expression for Jaskier to properly recognize, but he _knows_ it, somehow. That the witcher is sad. His heart beats fast inside his chest, having that yellow gaze fixed on him. 

For a heart-wrenching moment, Geralt lifts his hand free to fetch something from his pack. He doesn’t say anything, which only drives Jaskier to near panic. 

When he turns back around, there’s a small mirror in his hand. 

“Come,” Geralt says, even when _he_ is the one to come to Jaskier’s side. 

Jaskier looks into the mirror. His heart stops.

His eyes look very much the same. Pupils a little dilated, perhaps, with the shutters drawn. But it is not a stranger’s gaze what greets him. Those are still his eyes.

It is his ears. His ears which arch higher than they used to. Unthinking, Jaskier raises a hand to the new pointed ends and immediately withdraws it before it can touch. The reflection of the nails had looked so foreign—so _alien—_ that he'd startled himself. The second thing is, by having gaped slightly at the visible changes, elongated cuspids— _fangs_ peek through the part of his lips. For that, he does lift one careful finger to prod at its shape. 

The thing in the mirror cannot possibly be _him._ But indeed, Geralt doesn’t sugarcoat the truth of what has become of him.

“I don’t know what the bruxa did but you died and came back as something— _other._ Not as a ghoul, that would mean you lost your mind and spirit in death. And rot has not set in. You are...you’re still you. But changed all the same.” 

He is dead, and yet he is not dead. That is at the core of what the witcher speaks. A violation of existence. 

An incredulous giggle threatens to leave him, barely contained by the horror of this—this new becoming. Jaskier isn’t sure if laughing will not plunge him straight into madness. He is not able to completely contain it when he asks almost hysterically, “Are you saying I am a...a vampire now?”

“I don’t know.” Being done, Geralt puts the mirror away. Jaskier is not sure if he feels grateful to him for taking it away, or if he is angry that he cannot _see_ all the ways in which he is no longer himself. “As I said, vampires are a race of their own. The lower breed might spread anemic diseases, but that is the extent of their power. Humans cannot be made into vampires.”

“That you know.”

To that, the witcher concedes a low nod. “That I know, and by what the old bestiaries tell.”

He is not reassured to know that this is the extent of the witcher’s expertise. A threshold has been crossed. They are walking blind into new territory. But as the seconds pass, Jaskier slowly regains his composure. He is dead, and yet he is very much alive, which is something he can be thankful for. He can _think._ He can reason. He can _sleep,_ which he is shamelessly glad for, because fainting sounds great after all that.

But with being—is it vampire? undead? a yet to be determined _creature?—_ , Jaskier understands there must come adjustments. An inevitable newfound weakness and strength, which will no doubt irritate him to learn. Like toddler steps in adulthood.

“I suppose that silver rings are out of the question, obviously, but is there anything else I should watch for? Garlic, perhaps?” He remembers the glimpse of light outside and shudders in trepidation. “Are daytime activities permanently prohibited? All the fun parties happen in the evening.”

“The sun won’t burn you. I think.”

“You _think?”_ He squeaks rather embarrassingly. 

“The sun is harmless to—higher vampires.” Geralt frowns.

He is terrible at this reassuring thing.

Jaskier simply curls into himself again, head resting on his raised knees. His words are half muffled by the sheets. “And you don’t even know what I am, with certainty. You see my concern.”

He may be coming to accept that he has been turned into something _‘other’,_ but it does not come without its frustrations. There will be so much change to adjust to. For one, it will be difficult to hide his more inhuman likeness, if it is to be done for an extended period of time. And Jaskier is world-famous. His absence from the public scene will be noted. People will ask around. News and gossip travels fast in the Continent’s higher courts. 

Slowly, Jaskier lifts his head and offers a tired smile to the witcher. “I trust your word, Geralt. I do. I think I’m just—overwhelmed.” More like _absolutely terrified._

“I understand. We’ll figure something out.” This, Geralt says with such adamant force that Jaskier cannot help but believe in him. “Once we depart Rivia, I will get you the help you need.” 

The bard swallows hard, and nods.

“For now, you should familiarize yourself with...” He makes a broad gesture that encompasses all of Jaskier as if to say _everything._ “Right. Let me see your wounds.”

Jaskier is excited to oblige. The bandages itch. The salve has dried up and done its work, so all that’s left is the stiff texture of the bindings rubbing over his skin. They come off easily. Geralt inspects him with great attention to detail. He does not bother to redress the wounds. In fact, when Jaskier glances down at his exposed side, it is as if there had never been a wound at all.

“Not even a blemish,” Jaskier states with surprise. He runs an extremely delicate hand over the healed skin, not wishing to scratch himself open. “That’s...incredible, actually.”

A huff of air leaves the witcher. “Yeah. Enhanced healing. Better than mine.” 

Glancing up at his tone, Jaskier catches Geralt scratching his neck. The skin there is red. Bite marks peak through the uppermost cut of one leather pauldron. It still heals over scabs. 

Jaskier leans forward to stop Geralt’s hand from damaging the tissue further. “I...that was me, wasn’t it.”

He cannot remember it clearly, but it’s there. Fear, and pain, and terrible hunger. Geralt’s heavy arms keeping him aloft. An awful gut-wrenching feeling weighs against his lungs, stealing his air. 

But before he can apologize, Geralt sits upright, pulling back from the contact. “Don’t. You do not blame yourself for getting _killed_ and turning into this against your will, Jaskier. You weren’t yourself.” 

Softer, as if remembering himself and the harsh grip that’s turned over Jaskier’s hand, Geralt adds, “You said you were hungry.”

Jaskier isn’t sure how to take that. He _is_ hungry, but now, fully understanding what that means—what he _does_ to quell that hunger—, it is the last thing he wants to address. 

He tries to brush it aside. It’s not really a big of a deal, he promises. But this is Geralt he is talking to, and Geralt is the most stubborn person he’s met, to match Jaskier’s own bullheaded ways. Arguing with him comes naturally.

The things Geralt says, though. 

“Starving will drive you mad, Jaskier. What if feeding is the only thing keeping you aware of yourself?”

Jaskier has a strong physical memory of biting down on soft flesh, and he shudders. He yearns to touch the exposed skin where the bite still heals in Geralt’s neck. To soothe it. “I don’t want to hurt you, Geralt—”

“You won’t. Just tell me when you need blood. Holding back will make it worse.” 

“And I might hurt other people.” The silent implication turns Jaskier’s stomach, that choosing to suffer quietly within himself might release something uncontrollable. Something that Geralt will have to stop with his sword. For good.

It's what pushes him to relent to Geralt’s wishes. 

“I...I won’t lie to you. I’ll tell you when I need to—feed.” Jaskier cringes at the word. He’s really no more than a beast now, isn’t he? A beast with a conscience. 

But not a monster. Not yet. 

Jaskier purses his lips when Geralt undoes the topmost catch of his armorpiece. The softened leather comes away from the tight circle of the witcher’s neck. He detests how his gut gives a sharp tug when Geralt’s throat bobs from swallowing. 

One of Geralt’s hands envelops his wrist. The touch is fire-hot, skin to skin. All of a sudden, the cold inside Jaskier’s bones makes itself known. 

“Go on,” the witcher breathes, eyes burning cinders of determination. “It’s fine.”

He is so cold that Jaskier would crowd closer to him anyway. The bed is meant for one person, and Geralt takes up half of the bed by facing him. Moving towards him takes up little time and effort. 

This close, he can smell week’s worth of sweat embedded into the worn leather of Geralt’s armor. It doesn’t bother Jaskier as much as he would have thought. Everything else strikes him so acutely. Then again, he still keeps the witcher’s cloak so close, the only lasting comfort in the last few hours. Better that he doesn’t question it too much. 

Fitting into Geralt’s exposed side means there’s a lot of personal space to encroach on. His arm is released in a moment and with the newfound freedom he can kneel over one of Geralt’s bent legs for a better angle, opposite to the healing bite. 

It should be awkward, but it seems he is the only one fretting over the necessary intrusion. Geralt’s face is relaxed. He simply tilts his head away when Jaskier hovers nearer.

Something about that willing surrender makes his jaw clench and his _teeth_ ache. They feel larger in his mouth. It’s all too foreign a feeling. Jaskier wants it to end, so he parts his lips and sets his mouth against the pale neck before him. His fangs _are_ longer, he realizes. They cover his bottom lip fully. If he focuses on their shape, they seem to grow even past that. How _chilling,_ the sensation against his gums. 

“Jaskier.”

Geralt’s brow is furrowed when he looks up. He’d been staring blankly for a bit too long, it seems. “Sorry.”

With that, he doesn’t delay a moment more. His teeth pierce the skin easily, with little pressure. Blood wells against his tongue. 

He sucks without even considering it, a primal instinct taking the reins with how to feed. The taste is—difficult to define. Jaskier has tasted blood before. He knows it from split lips and broken noses, yet this doesn’t _taste_ like anything old and familiar. 

For one, he likes it. Stupidly, irrationally, he _likes_ the coppery film of blood trickling into his mouth. In that instant, his stomach fills with fear. His lips have latched around the fresh wound, not allowing a single drop to escape. The muscle underneath him is so stiff. A half-lived grunt rings in his ear on the following suck and Jaskier’s heart lurches. He is hurting Geralt. The blood tastes so thick and rich, and not at all worth it for the price of Geralt’s well-being. 

Jaskier knows the witcher can take it but hates all the same that this is what they must do. All for him. He wishes so badly for it to be painless. If he could simply drain what he needs and cause Geralt the least amount of discomfort, he would. 

Something changes when he next draws out blood. 

It’s not just the taste. Suddenly, it feels _good._ He bites down a little stronger from the warm sensation spreading from his throat down to the tips of his toes, and it feels _good._ He’d forgotten the numbing cold he’d awoken to, in all their talking. The more he drinks, the hotter he becomes.

Geralt grunts with more force, and the wonderful floaty feeling in his head fades as if splashed by ice-water. One of Geralt’s hands grips Jaskier’s back, hard. Jaskier wants to stop, eyes wide, guilt heavy in his gut, but he can’t. The hand digs into the meat of his spine, and he does stop then to gasp. 

“I’m—I’m sorry—I—”

His voice cuts off when all Geralt does is lay his head down on his shoulder, hand still a hard wall keeping them pressed close. “Gimme a moment.” 

“Yes, of course.” 

He squirms, waiting as Geralt takes deep breaths. He is still shirtless with the upper half of his clothes being ruined, so the puffs of air against his skin raise gooseflesh.

There’s another thing. When he moves to sit back, his knee brushes against the inner bounds of Geralt’s thighs. It is an accident that he feels the hard shape of something far too distinct to be mistaken for anything innocent.

Jaskier grows so still.

“Ah. Um.” 

That’s an unexpected development. He isn’t sure what to say. If it is even proper to say anything, given what has just happened between them. In the meantime, his stomach is doing an excellent job sinking down to his feet.

“It’s not—what you think,” Geralt burrs hoarsely between groans. “It’s—a vampire’s bite can be...pleasurable, if they will it.”

"Oh. _Oh."_ Jaskier blushes bright pink. His fingers twitch where they remain prone safely on the bedcovers. With Geralt’s head curved to the side, he sees the fresh bite he’s left on him. Twin pricks bleed a thin-webbed trail of red down into the armor’s inside. 

The guilt comes back hard and cold, even with new fire gathering in his veins. 

Jaskier tears his eyes away from the wound. “You were obviously uncomfortable. I didn’t want to keep hurting you.”

“Yeah. That explains it.”

“Geralt,” the word catches in his throat. “I didn’t know I could— _will_ this.”

That seems to matter little to the witcher, seeing as he stays where he is propped up on Jaskier’s shoulder. “I know. It’s fine.”

“It—it is _not_.”

“If I say it’s fine, it is.”

Geralt says it like it’s not world-shattering to discover private desires could have physical repercussions on _other_ people. He could turn an excruciating wound into ecstasy. That he’d even managed to discover that on his first conscious feeding is probably outstanding, _and_ irrelevant. Guilt yet lingers in the back of his mind, and it flares when he contemplates what it means that Geralt won’t have to suffer him every time hunger eats at his insides. The alternative is, however, just as shameful, because it means diving into Geralt’s body and forcing pleasure into it. 

Worse is acknowledging how _relieved_ he feels. Once, it would have been fuel of constant teasing. Geralt receives much of his affections and jokes for a reason, and it is not only that he has a witcher-sized soft spot for him. Finding things that please the witcher has been a bit of a hobby. 

But this is not affection. It is not a joke. It is an _offense._

A hunger of a more human kind throbs under his skin. He _wants._ It is so easy to want Geralt. It has always been so easy. Now, more than ever, with them but a layer of clothing apart, he wants so _much._ If only he didn’t have the weight of a monstrous becoming for the rest of his continuing existence.

And he has no right to want Geralt. Not for this. So he waits as the witcher gathers his wits about him, all the while his mind conjuring awful scenarios where he did not stop feeding and instead succumbed to his terrible desires. 

Eventually, Geralt speaks up. 

“It’s not going away.” His pale eyebrows crease in confusion, and Jaskier’s heart skips a full beat when he starts straightening up, fearing the worst. “I need to...take care of this.”

Before he can think twice he blurts, “Let me help.”

Geralt pauses in parting. 

“Jaskier.”

“No, don’t you _‘Jaskier’_ me. I did this to you. And if we are to keep doing this, then I should bear my responsibility in causing it.”

He is arguing absurdly for his own skin-hunger. This is hardly something he needs to help Geralt with. The witcher says as much, though with a voice much more gentle than Jaskier believes he deserves.

“You don’t need to.”

 _I want to_ , Jaskier doesn’t say, because that would be admitting too much. “Please,” comes through instead. 

Maybe it is that Geralt pities him, but he relents, sitting back with a sigh and an uncomfortable twist of his mouth. Jaskier doesn’t think too much about it. If he does, he’ll regret pushing for this. He might already be regretting it as he watches Geralt unbutton his dented breeches, neither of them meeting eyes. 

This might be too much to ask for. It isn’t even that Jaskier is _asking_ , but pushing for it. Pushing them in a direction neither of them might be prepared for. But Jaskier is too selfish. He’s always wanted for things he cannot have. He sees the effect he has had on Geralt and wants so badly to take this—this _forbidden reward._ A reward for the monster inside.

Whatever reason Geralt has for allowing it, Jaskier will take it like a man starved.

Geralt pushes down the bunched fabric so it rests under his hips and Jaskier waters—and _burns—_ at the sight of his cock, red and propped against his clothed thigh. The contrast of skin-and-leather is beautiful. An erotic picture his mind will never forget. His witcher leans back on one steady hand as the other grips his breeches. Like that, he finally meets Jaskier’s piercing gaze, chin low against collarbone. 

It is not a coy look. Nor is it an invitation because none is given out loud. But there is lust. Maybe brought upon by vampiric command. Jaskier hesitantly sits on the thigh beneath him and the witcher does not back away. He keeps his eyes trained on the newborn vampire’s approach. _Yes,_ Jaskier approves, _Good that he does._ He trusts Geralt to stop him.

When he reaches down, Geralt’s cock is heat given form in his palm. It’s big, bigger than what Jaskier is used to with his partners. But that’s alright. He only has to grip the flesh and give Geralt something to fuck into. It need only be easy.

That’s all he has to do, and yet his fingers splay at the base—fingers stiff and careful of being a danger—and drag up seeking friction, so deliberately slow. Geralt’s hips snap once. 

Jaskier’s eyes focus on the fluid dip of Geralt’s lower body. He repeats the stroke, licking his lips when a groan accompanies the second jerk. His own pants feel uncomfortably tight at the crotch, but the pressure is simple enough to ignore when he’s got such a wondrous spectacle before him. He’s so focused on not hurting Geralt, on keeping his talons from biting into skin. It is the very last thing he would want to do, when he _wants_ so, so hungrily.

A shift happens as he concentrates on giving Geralt the pleasure he deserves. The nails, hooked and thick like a bear’s, shrink a step. They tingle and lighten to a human shade, then retract altogether. 

He stops for a moment, just staring. It almost looks like his old hands. Jaskier’s pulse beats a cacophony of sound against his eardrums. 

Then his lips split into an obscene grin. 

“Look, Geralt,” he whispers as he grips the cock harder, freely, and starts a faster rhythm. “ _Look,_ isn’t that marvelous? I can hold you so tightly now.” 

Geralt does look, but he cannot quite say anything about it beyond a panting stutter. That’s alright. Jaskier understands. He is trying very hard to make sure it is good, twisting his wrist on the upward pull so he can palm the purple head. Jaskier has always been a fast learner. Geralt’s fist on the sheets stiffens when he does that. His head lays lax to the side. Clear fluid beads at the head, and Jaskier knows it’s working. At the base again, he presses down, nails just slightly scraping the delicate skin, and that makes Geralt’s whole body seize for a second. No sound comes from him, but his jaw goes slack and slick gathers under Jaskier’s thumb. 

He doesn’t stop stroking Geralt through it, not as the witcher surges up, hips faltering in their rhythm. Not as the cock in his palm pulses a sudden streak over them both. 

“That’s good,” Jaskier reassures with soft-spoken words, and he doesn’t stop until the last spurt comes free. Geralt groans deep in his chest, head hanging low. 

Jaskier’s own cock aches, but he will not indulge. This was for Geralt, and he is more than satisfied having brought him to completion. Blood-fed, he’s a trapped inferno in a suit of skin. The cold is a distant memory.

He would lick his fingers clean, but that would be indecent _and_ inappropriate. So he settles for cleaning up with a corner of the bedspread.

It’s a few minutes spent in silence. Eventually, Geralt releases his death-grip on the sheets to tuck himself in and fix his breeches. Then he stands from the bed looking rightly debauched, with his white hair mussed up and his clothes wrinkled and stinking of sex.

“How do you feel?”

Jaskier blinks up at him. 

“Shouldn’t I be asking _you_ that?” But Geralt just gives him a pointed stare. “Better? Definitely better.”

“Good. I’m going to meditate for an hour. We’ll see about testing your shifting after.” 

As he says it, Geralt waves at Jaskier’s hands and—well.

Turning his palms over, the talons returned. Though shorter than before. They are still too thick to be anything but monstrous.

He has a lot more to ask the witcher, but when Jaskier looks up, Geralt’s already settled into a chair against the wall and closed his eyes in meditation. Whatever it is will have to wait an hour. And he can wait. 

Jaskier crawls back under the bedspread, nervous thoughts suspended for the moment. All thoughts but one.

He had to die. In order for him to have Geralt so completely—to have his body, his acceptance, his forgiveness—he had to go and die. Jaskier could cry for how much his heart aches at the irony. Better treated in death than in life. It is less of a bitter thought than it sounds, really. He’s not _‘dead’_ in that sense, not like a ghost, watching the world with passive eyes. 

He is still a part of it. For as long as he still has his wits.

For as long as Geralt will have him.

Jaskier is thirty-five when he dies. 

Some would say he lived a full life, more than most men would have the means to in his time. He is neither too young nor too old. His name has been secured in the history books as both poet, troubadour, and friend to the White Wolf of many legends. 

Jaskier would say it means he won’t have wrinkles in his undead life, an enviable position to be in.

With Geralt’s borrowed mirror, he can properly study the minute changes of his form. Fangs withdrawn, he might pass for any other ordinary person in a gods-forsaken town. His ears and nails are a big concern though. The slight paleness of his parlor is forgivable. Knowing he can rightly manipulate these inhuman traits, Jaskier concentrates on what works to smooth down the edges. 

Being calm is of utmost importance, but that alone cannot be the solution. His talons had retracted, briefly, in the satisfied bliss of pulling an orgasm out of Geralt. Surely he could find a more apt substitute for a day-to-day routine. 

All higher vampires have a _bat_ form, Geralt had explained upon waking, an animalistic transformation for the most extreme of circumstances. Whatever that means for him, it is for another day. He still has little knowledge of how his new body works, too little for him to test that secondary form out. The thought of it happening out in public however _terrifies_ Jaskier, which means progress halts every few hours to accommodate the interludes of anxiety. 

Sometimes, in those moments, his fangs grow back to their full length, and he thinks he can see red in the eyes that reflect back at him. 

It takes the better part of the day and night to constrain everything to a mostly-passable extent. His canines gleam if he smiles. His ears curl just the smallest bit to make the shadow of a leaf. A nobleman might call his hands effeminate, for the oval length of the fingernails that taper into a point. No one would scream in horror at it. 

For all his trial and error, Geralt sits in the room with him, going from meditating to watching out for any flaw in his human guise. 

By the time the sun starts to rise, they head down together to test the final hurdle.

“I don’t know why I’m nervous,” Jaskier hesitantly laughs at Geralt who stands close-by. “It’s only the sun.”

“The morning’s rays are weakest. If it burns...”

“Head back inside, yes.” They’ve gone over the plan multiple times in the night, after Jaskier successfully kept his body in control for more than an hour’s time.

Without further dalliance, he takes a step out the inn’s backdoor. A bright beam of light hits him square in the face.

It’s blinding, _far_ too bright for morning light. But he doesn’t burn.

Jaskier squints back at the witcher who holds an iron grip on the door handle. “Well! Mark me ready for sunny days out!”

The rest of the day goes much more smoothly, the bard excited to walk out in the world again. He can still live his life by the sun’s phases, even if it might be a little headache inducing for long periods. 

Now all that is left is to buy a new set of clothes to replace his ruined pieces. At the moment, he has a spare doublet. It won’t do for long out on the road. And they _will_ be traveling soon, for a yet-undetermined length of time. 

They agree to go out in the evening, when the crowds are thinner. But as it turns out, the crowds aren’t really a problem. It’s the smells. 

Beside the witcher, Jaskier doesn’t notice. Not at first. The leather of his witcher set is well-worn and aged. It carries more of Geralt’s scent than its own smithed history. A coppery imprint lingers on his swords, which is to be expected, now that he recognizes it to be old blood. 

But among the villagers of the Rivian country, he can hardly keep track of it. There’s too much manure in the air. Piss and feces, animal and human, cling to the cobblestones and the clucking creatures that walk it. A few men _reek_ of booze, and it actually makes him gag when he can taste the malted barley in the back of his throat. 

Something metallic falls to the ground when they reach the marketstreet and Jaskier flinches. It rings so loud. Echoes between his ears. 

He walks a little closer to Geralt with a pinched expression. There, it is not completely unbearable. The sounds he will have to adjust to, and the smells fade slightly if he focuses all his attention on single objects. The perfumed bottles of a Cidarian stall. The lemon-rubbed clothes that hang from a window two stories up. It is critical that he stay calm and collected or else the careful guise he’s adopted will shift into sharper ends. They are out in the open. Jaskier cannot break now.

Something heavy falls over his shoulders and his neck. His hands—fingernails just a smidge longer than before—grasp it quickly. It’s Geralt’s cloak. 

As he looks to the side, he catches the witcher turning to inspect the tailor’s shop. Stacks of vibrant patterned fabric greet Jaskier’s sight. It seems a good place to start. 

He holds the cloak a little closer around his ears and breathes. 

The tailor is skilled enough with his craft that he prepares a simple set fit for travelling. It is far from Jaskier’s usual panache, but garnering attention would be a bad idea now, admittedly. 

The deep red dye of the doublet and breeches is of a more expensive quality. It does not glimmer in the light despite being made of silk, the color so rich and deep as to be like wine. Jaskier is already quite fond of it. 

The shirt underneath is a rusty gold. He would have preferred cobalt or azurite, but the gold fabric is the softest the tailor owns, and as of his turning, Jaskier would only have soft, sleek fabric for his delicate senses.

They eat—or more accurately, Geralt eats and Jaskier _pretends to_ —one last time at the inn’s tavern before heading out. Roach welcomes them after their three-day absence in her usual way, butting her head against Geralt’s chest with a snort, to which Geralt complains half-heartedly.

It is the most normal thing Jaskier’s seen since that fateful night with the bruxa. It makes something in his chest seize up. 

They ride the whole day out, stopping only so that Roach can graze. Jaskier could follow on foot as he’s done for many years now, but for once, Geralt pulls him up to sit at the back of the saddle. It makes for faster travel. Roach is a sturdy lady, and she doesn’t buck him off when he climbs on top of her in a less than elegant manner. It isn’t the _most_ comfortable arrangement, but as he must hold fast to Geralt, Jaskier won’t protest. 

He’s found that with his new vampiric nose, Geralt is full of earthy smells, and it is pleasant to be just that much closer to his side. None of his stronger smells bother him, not like the city stench does. It helps that out on the road, it is just them. Not a dozen mixed-bags of unwashed men and women. 

The cloak had been soothing for a similar reason, he thinks as he clings to Geralt’s waist and rests his forehead on one cloak-bound shoulder. A powerful scent that blocks the rest. Geralt wears it now.

The sun dips low in the sky, a relief on his light-keen eyes. Jaskier inhales deep, nose pressed to the old fabric. There’s just a hint of his own strange scent on it, a mark of the days spent in Rivia. 

He hums, infinitely pleased that his presence can linger on the thing. More so that it is set over Geralt’s imposing frame. There’s something gratifying about it. His scent on his witcher.

His head feels misty the longer he breathes in, body flush against Geralt. It’s not that he’s aroused by the thought, which would probably be easier to explain. Or to just understand. That new part of him much closer to an animal is _giddy._ Thrumming like a wild cat licking up a plate of cream.

His hands clench and knead the front of his witcher’s waist where the cloak bunches up into folds. 

“Jaskier.”

Jaskier lets out a long, content hum. He could sleep like this, eyes open and all. He’s fallen into some sort of haze where the world’s a blur and it’s not a thing to worry about. 

_“Jaskier.”_

At the scolding tone, he blinks, listless eyes drawn on the patches of grass by the road. He’s slow to lift up with a questioning, “Hmm?”

“Your—nails?”

His nails. Jaskier flexes his loose fists open and—ah, they’d grown into talons again. 

“Are you hungry again?”

“No it’s, um,” he shakes his head, coming back to himself. That was kind of—a _strange_ moment. He’s not still sure if he’s completely aware of himself, if his ears haven’t stretched to fox-length and something else has gone and shifted on him. “It’s alright. I’m just tired.”

There’s a comfortable warmth in his chest that tells him all is well. No bone-deep cold draining the life out of him. No dry click of thirst when he swallows. 

But Geralt isn’t fully convinced. He leads Roach off the path through a bush and into a grassy open space between the trees. “You said you wouldn’t lie. You’re not tired, Jaskier.”

“Alright, yes I’m _not_ tired, I apologize for fibbing but, it’s just—you stink.”

“I _what."_

Geralt twists around to face him with a disbelieving frown. Jaskier promised to be honest, but it’s ridiculous that he has to explain himself too. Especially when it’s something so _embarrassing_ to still figure out himself.

“You...your smell is on everything. It’s on your pack, on Roach, on this—poor excuse of a cloak. It’s on _me._ Forgive me for not wanting to disclose so much because as I am now, it smells good.”

He doesn’t mean to sound reproachful. Geralt’s crushing scent on all of their things is _nice._ A perfect balm to wipe over the world which has become an unpleasant experience to behold.

“You think I smell good?” 

“Ah. Yes?”

“ _‘Good’_ like how?”

On the trek through the wood, they’ve ended up dismounting and setting up camp for the night. Geralt is asking him questions when Jaskier is usually the one to go on a tangent and draw the conversation into a chaotic loop. It is not a bother, nor will it ever be. He still likes to break the silence between them. 

“It's good...like...I don’t know quite how to describe it, Geralt, so bear with me.” It’s tricky to define. He does not yet know why things seem the way they do. But he tries still. “After, uh, feeding last time, there’s an air of—gods save me— _dessert_ about you. I don’t mean that you’re a sweet-and-savory treat, not that, please. It’s more the—anticipation? Alright, the _anticipation_ of a slice of cream pie on the other side of the room saved for the evening. You understand? It’s—you know it’s there. You can just _smell_ it. And it’s good. The anticipation is—exciting and, you...you kind of smell of that?”

Jaskier fears it’s nonsense. _You smell as exciting as cream pie._ A minstrel yet green around his ears could do better.

All through his gesticulating babble, Geralt fixes a fire pit and brings it to life with a sign. He’s kneeling on one side, making sure there’s no chance of the surrounding patch of grass catching fire. When Jaskier huffs to a stop, the witcher shakes his head. “You’re calling me a pie, and that’s not a clear sign that you _are_ hungry?”

He isn’t. At least, he doesn’t think so. But saying as much has Geralt insisting for him to feed once more. 

Jaskier is capable of controlling himself. He’s not foaming at the mouth to drink again. 

“Are you sure? I don’t want to leave you faint.”

“I dont mind your drinking.” Satisfied with their camp, Geralt sits on a small rock and begins the process of unfastening his armor. “I can take it and recover better than any human can.”

The two bites mirrored on his neck say as much. 

Jaskier sighs inwards. “I really don’t think it’s necessary, but alright.”

Unlike last time, he can sit beside the witcher and not overstep. The old bite is healing well. By the looks of it, a small scar will form in the shape of a crescent. Jaskier doesn’t wish to make it any worse, so he picks the side which only sports inflamed pinpricks. He’ll bite lower, to keep the wound from tearing open. 

“Right, well. Here goes,” Jaskier warns as his cuspids grow and sink where the neck meets shoulder. Blood fills his mouth. It no longer feels so foreign a taste. He takes slow, careful mouthfuls, resolved with causing Geralt as little pain as possible. It becomes arousing again, though that is again not what Jaskier intended. 

Sitting astride the witcher, he does not feel Geralt stir, but the muted groan that follows travels straight to his throat. Jaskier can feel _himself_ react to it. If he is quick, he can spare them both the embarrassment. 

But in being quick, he swallows too much at once. Heat rises up his ears like a hard shot of liquor. Something in the bite must pass on to Geralt because a hand comes up to grip his head, and Jaskier can’t tell if he means to pull him back or bury him deeper. Whatever it may be, it feels _wonderful_ on his scalp. An electrifying caress that leaves his skin smoking.

This time, Geralt doesn’t have to pinch his back for him to remove himself. Sitting up, Jaskier pitches forward and nearly slips off the stone to his knees like a drunkard, _giggling._

After a second he goes ahead and drops to the grass anyway, following Geralt’s hand when it steals away. He wants to keep touching. It makes him go warm and full and fuzzy in the head.

“Ger’lt,” he whines, tucking inside the witcher’s legs, into the hottest pocket of space. Right there he can properly feel how hard Geralt is and he smiles a lazy line across his face. 

“Jaskier,” the hand blessedly comes back to his neck this time and Jaskier hums deep from his chest. “You’ve had too much. You’re blood-drunk. We shouldn’t— _fuck.”_

Paying attention is not worth his time when there’s a clothed cock in front of him to mouth, and Jaskier _lavishes_ it through the fabric. His tongue traces the hard line of it until the front is damp under his lips. 

_“Jaskier,_ ” hips jump up at him and Jaskier _moans,_ nosing the wet spot. He can _scent_ it. Geralt is close. He’s so close and still a layer of clothing apart and that just won’t do. He wants to _taste_ his witcher reaching his peak. He wants it so much his hands shake and paw where they lay on tense thighs.

“Geralt. Geralt please, _please_ let me—”

He can’t even finish talking, so trained on his prize. It’s difficult to free the thick cock from its tight prison but with declawed hands he can part the buttons and finally, finally pull it through his lips and _suck._

For a split second, skin smacks against his nose and he chokes, feeling the tip of Geralt’s cock pop in and down his throat. Just for a split second before it draws out, a pair of calloused hands cradling his face. His touch is magic. Jaskier’s eyes roll into his skull and he moans obscenely as his jaw stretches to fit him all in. 

He is rewarded with a faltering thrust and the overwhelming bitter taste of spent on his tongue. 

Swallowing is a challenge around all of Geralt, but that doesn’t stop him from trying. He gives it a good test before his witcher makes as if to pull back, to which Jaskier sucks, _hard,_ until all of him spills in his mouth. He will not waste anything his witcher gives. 

By the end of it Jaskier is panting like a dog, eyes and mouth watering from the sharp smell-taste assaulting his senses. It is too much and not enough. Never enough for this greedy beast.

But Jaskier is not yet a beast, and despite the state of his own arousal, he is well-sated. Blood and spent, both his witcher’s. 

“ _Hr_ mm, as exciting as cream pie.”

Jaskier giggles to his own joke, resting his head on Geralt’s shapely leg. Gently, he tucks Geralt back into his breeches and promptly passes out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the amazing support on the first chapter!! Have a fat treat on my part. Sorry-ish for the cliff-hanger?


	3. II: Compendium, of Transmutation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Chapter warnings:** Mild gore. Sexual content (oral, anal sex).  
>   
> Brief implied Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer of Vengerberg. Apologies if parts of the formatting ahead are strange!

Geralt looks up to the darkening skies and sighs.

He has Jaskier sprawled on the ground before him, his thin neck craned over a black-clothed thigh. The young— _immature,_ Geralt has to correct himself, immature because Jaskier is not _young_ —vampire is well and truly unconscious, muscles lax as he dozes away. The flush on his face could almost be endearing, if not for the reason behind the deep color. 

Seeing as it’s becoming late, Geralt sits up from his rock and gathers the bard in his arms to put him on the spare sleeping mat. Jaskier goes easy, not stirring except for the very last second when he mumbles something indiscernible. Whatever it is, he gives up on the attempt at talking to curl warmly into a ball. And snore.

Like this, Geralt could almost believe nothing has changed. That Jaskier is still Jaskier. Still human. But just moments ago, the bard had bit his neck with inhuman teeth and, in a blood-drunk haze, sucked a smoldering orgasm out of him. So it is difficult for the witcher to convince himself of the wishful thinking. 

It is not yet too late. For the last couple of days Geralt has been watchful and patient. With that patience, Jaskier has proven to be more or less himself. Affected, yes, but it’s Jaskier who greets Geralt in the morning and not a mindless ghoul. It’s the same old bard with his many expressive gestures and grimaces. Deep down, Geralt had been preparing for the worst. His gloves are beginning to wear down and chafe at skin by how often his hands clench into fists. If Jaskier had turned more beast than man, Geralt would have been ready to take them out into the woods and away from towns and cities. To wait the symptoms out. 

But he was wrong to have worried so much. The medallion around his neck hasn’t hummed to any sign of threat. When facing the bruxa, it had rattled briefly in alarm. Too late to have warned him of the chaos that would have ensued, but it still worked as designed. It was not broken, and after days in Jaskier’s transformed presence, it hadn’t hummed once. 

It is a good sign. He can sit by the fire and tear up a few pieces of dried meat without looking over his shoulder at the sleeping form a few feet away.

What worries him now is the ordeal with feeding. Certainly Jaskier doesn’t need to feed on blood so often. They’ve discovered that now. It means they will fare better, when in the cities. 

But the _feeding._ Geralt hadn’t expected it to be so— _enjoyable._ He expected pain. It would have been easier to handle. But pleasure? That it comes from Jaskier is perhaps too much. He’s barely been able to come to terms with the bard’s death and his undeath becoming, with that pain so deep in his chest that left him unmoored in the dark night. 

Because of it, Geralt understands he _must_ undo the wrong he committed in putting Jaskier’s life in danger. And yet here he sits, treading recklessly, stupidly, _indulging_ a vampire’s enrapture, all at Jaskier’s expense. Because Jaskier _has to_ feed. He cannot help it. He cannot help what his bite incites. It is Geralt who puts himself under Jaskier’s eager, inexperienced hands and has the audacity to _want._

Moments before, as Jaskier began to drink more steadily, Geralt even anticipated the pleasure. He did nothing to deter it.

 _I am a terrible friend,_ he thinks. Pain would have been a better fate. It is what he deserves.

Sparks of campfire light dance in the air. He’s almost finished with his strips of meat. Roach stands tethered, quietly nibbling at a wild patch of grass. Her large eyes meet his. She has been very forgiving. Geralt ought to buy her some rare treats, as a show of gratitude. But not sweets. She’ll grow spoiled and demand more. 

One thing lingers in his mind, pertaining to sweets and ridiculous in nature. Geralt glances over to where Jaskier remains a motionless darkened shadow. 

He mumbles, “‘As exciting as cream pie,’ hm?”

It’s one of the more senseless things Jaskier has told him, so much like the stammering, nonsensical answers he gives if interrogated on the spot. In the darkened light, Geralt hides a private smile. Amidst a mountain of worry and regret, the bard still manages to surprise him. He finds a way to make light of something that would otherwise disturb them both greatly. 

The flaw in Jaskier’s reasoning is thinking Geralt would be disturbed by him. So his smelly clothes provoke a positive feeling. That—that actually _flatters_ Geralt, in a weird way. That he is capable of giving Jaskier something good to his new, developing senses. _He_ feels good for it. 

Geralt thinks, maybe his cloak would serve a better purpose on Jaskier’s person. Parting with it is hardly a grievance.

Then, as if roused by an unknown force, Jaskier starts to sing. 

He starts to sing an old children’s rhyme.

It’s wobbly and slurred, but Geralt recognizes the aged tune to be one young playmates chant to each other for fun. The bard sings it when he’s bored, usually just a verse or two before he catches the slip of the tongue and turns it into something bawdy. In those moments, Jaskier’s ears glow a bright red. As if embarrassed to know a childish rhyme, and that Geralt might judge him for it.

Now, however, he doesn’t stop himself. It comes unbidden. Jaskier lies in his bedroll, eyes closed, lips rounded by every few words.

Geralt doesn’t rouse him. He listens by the fire, still as stone, and stays himself from shaking the bard violently awake because even a trained minstrel like Jaskier does not sing in his sleep. Not after drinking his fill of the day and falling into an unconscious stupor. 

But a bruxa does. And it is so very difficult to smother the impulse down and control his quickening pulse because what he has before him is _not_ a bruxa. There is no need to be alert, ready and tense for an attack. The medallion rests motionless upon his breast. Jaskier is just fulfilling a vampiric instinct. 

A _specific_ vampiric instinct that befalls the kind of vampire that turned him.

Geralt sits in stifled silence, staring blindly at the dancing flames as Jaskier’s voice tapers off to a drone, then a hum. Then altogether nothing. He is quiet again, in dreamless sleep.

The silence stretches on, and Geralt waits. The night’s earlier peace never returns.

By the fire’s light, the witcher picks slowly around his pack for a piece of parchment with graphite scratches on its topmost sides. The stick of graphite itself comes after a wider search inside another cluttered pocket. 

No one’s ever known a vampire turned from a human. No one believed such a thing to be possible.

Geralt has to do his own notes.

____

_“On the topic of Higher Vampires:_

_Bruxae and Alps are often confused for the same species—for they are exceptionally, exclusively womanoids. Allow me to be the first to inform you, brusquely: heaving breasts and lengthy dark tresses are where their similarities end._

_As first recorded in the grand tome_ _‘Vampires: Facts and Myths’_ _by master Antoninus of Ban Gleán, Bruxae reside in a subcategory of the Higher Vampire class; distinguished from their kin by two essential features. The first is a powerful voice. Monster hunters, or indeed anyone caught in the unfortunate position of meeting one, should be careful to avoid its piercing scream. One cry alone could kill a man should he be standing within a stone’s throw of the vampire. At two stones, eardrums may burst. Permanent hearing loss becomes a very real possibility. Keep at minimum a three stone distance._

_Would that be all, but this is not where its vocal abilities end. Bruxae are known for singing after a good bloody feast. Every good hunter should recognize its cry composed to an ancient tongue, if they wish to live to see another day; for its song means it is well-fed and at its strongest. Only a Witcher might succeed against one—emphasis on ‘might’.” —_

_Greggor The Elder,_ The Essential Blood-feeder’s Bestiary, _2nd edition_

____  
  


“Did you sleep well?”

The question is poised out of the blue. Jaskier's deep-red doublet blazes spots at the edge of his vision.

“Slept like I always do,” Geralt burrs. 

They’re on a path through the Mahakam mountains, to the west of Rivia. It is the fastest road from the Lyrian realms to Temeria—to Vizima, though it is rougher ground to tread. Geralt holds Roach to a steady gait so Jaskier doesn’t have to grip him hard from behind. Reaching the city of Vizima will take about three weeks’ time, which is far too much to waste with the urgency of Jaskier’s condition. The mountains cannot move for them, so three weeks is their best bet.

By Vizima, he hopes to find the fickle Yennefer of Vengerberg. Last he heard, she was setting up a magic shop on the outskirts of the city and making a killer profit. And if it so happens that by the time they reach her shop the guileful sorceress has skipped town, Geralt can consult a number of other sorcerers stationed in the kingdom. 

Yennefer would be preferable. She knows Jaskier. Explaining the apparition of a vampire in his care would be easier with her than with the other mages. Geralt will have to see about that, if she’ll help him. They’ve been avoiding each other since their last encounter. Though that’s a part of the chase they each entertain, for different reasons. He’ll chase and she’ll trap, and one or the other will escape in the night. Sometimes the chase is long. Sometimes, the trap is not a trap, but a carrot dangling at the end of a fishing pole. 

It is why Geralt cannot say with any amount of confidence that the sorceress will stay for him in Vizima. She will sense his arrival, and at the last second, make a choice for herself. 

The day is long. Jaskier remains a hushed presence behind him. By high noon, Geralt suspects him of having dozed off, lulled by his fair horse’s clopping steps. It is no trouble to him as long as the bard doesn’t fall. But he is mistaken. The hands that wrap around him tighten a smidgen. Then they loosen their grip, and tighten again.

When he glances down to his waist, the barest sign of claws swell at Jaskier’s fingertips. 

Geralt looks over his shoulder to where Jaskier’s head of hair bounces lightly to the rhythm of Roach’s gait. It’s the same as before. Long, measured inhalations, the slight turn of the bard's body taking as much space over Geralt’s back as possible. The careful, kneading pressure over his leather-clad stomach at the cloak’s gathered folds. 

He doesn’t rouse him out of it this time. Geralt knows what it means, though he doubts Jaskier is any more aware of himself now than he was yesterday.

It’s his cloak’s heavy scent, worn by hunt and travel. And according to Jaskier’s vampiric nose, it _’smells good’._

Geralt keeps the pace until Roach nickers at him, eyeing a brook. 

They spend much of the first week focused on crossing the mountain pass. Jaskier doesn’t tire, though he falls into those _scenting hazes_ every now and then as they ride Roach. It is of no real consequence, so Geralt lets the vampire have his peace. 

Though it’s unnecessary, Jaskier also goes to sleep at night. Because it delights him, he says. With equal abandon, the bard happily takes a piece of cooked pheasant one night at dinnertime. 

He spits it out _less_ happily a moment later.

“It doesn’t really taste nice.”

Geralt is busy poking the flames to life, a lone eyebrow quirked high at Jaskier’s repulsed cough. “It’s pheasant.”

With a grumble and a faraway stare, Jaskier scratches his nose. The firelight paints his widened pupils a glowing orange. That change has taken some time to get used to. 

“Geralt, I’ve tasted pheasant _before._ I mean it’s not as nice as it _used to_ be.”

“Then stop eating my pheasant. I don’t want you retching it into the bushes because it gave you a stomachache.”

“I’m not going to retch.”

The tightness in Jaskier’s lips keeps Geralt from egging him on. He is clearly displeased that he couldn’t eat pheasant. Though, it is perhaps more than that. Like not being able to enjoy cooked meat. It might be that, with the current state of his body, all foods have turned to mulch in his mouth. Save bloody cuts. 

Geralt is not sure what to say to make Jaskier stop sulking. It doesn’t fit him. So much of this doesn’t fit him. 

“Maybe it’s just the pheasant.”

Jaskier directs his glimmering eyes towards him, and the tension there breaks. The edges of his lips turn upwards. “Maybe it’s your terrible cooking.”

“If my cooking is so bad, why did you _test_ it?”

“I was curious! You didn’t say I couldn’t.” 

At that, Geralt pulls what’s left of the pheasant away from Jaskier’s probing hands. He takes a good bite out of the white meat at its breast and chews out, “From now on, unless you’re verbally invited, it’s _my_ dinner.”

“Oh don’t be obnoxious about it, I’m not about to steal it from your greasy fingers.” Even as he says it, Jaskier gropes for his arm. Geralt isn’t trusting him not to snatch the last bit of the cooked bird just to be a playful little shit. At the last second, he stands, gnawing the last bits of meat into his mouth from thin, burned bones. “You ass, come here. Come here and give me a bone to smack you with!”

Geralt does the exact opposite, tossing the finished bones into the fire. This displeases the bard, who tackles him in revenge.

Only neither of them imagines Jaskier to be able to push him, let alone actually _floor_ him. 

The force that meets his chest is like a one man stampede. He wasn’t expecting it. So he meets the push and topples over, Jaskier sprawling on top of him with a scared shriek. 

They end up twisted on the ground, grass-stained and staring wide-eyed at each other’s faces. 

Geralt breaks the silence first with an apt, “Fuck.”

“Uh,” Jaskier fumbles to get up, pheasant bones completely forgotten. “Uh...sorry?” 

Geralt smacks his head against the ground with a grunt, going over the sort of strength that it takes to toss him off his feet. And Jaskier did that. Without trying. 

“Shit, Geralt, let me—”

The hand shot in front of his eyes only shakes a little. Geralt blinks. He takes it by the arm, once more expecting Jaskier to struggle like he usually does with all of his weight and armor. But Jaskier simply tugs him up and Geralt _goes._

Upright in a flash, he blinks again. Jaskier blinks too.

“I think,” Jaskier drawls as he inspects his hand like a foreign agent attached to his body, “We can add enhanced, uh, _muscles_ to the list of vampiry things.”

The dusted witcher runs a palm through his face. With a begrudging, “Yeah,” he closes the conversation before it devolves into a teasing match very much not in his favor. 

He hadn’t been paying attention to the flummoxed bard as he chased him, not really. But later, after they’ve both agreed never to do that again, Geralt will realize Jaskier must have moved at an inhuman speed because they skidded on the dirt and ended a distance from the fire.

And that, too, will have to go on the list of _‘vampiry things'._

____

_—“If a Bruxa’s first denominator is its voice, I boldly declare its powers of invisibility to be its second. No other Higher Vampire does so quite as flawlessly. The biological mechanism behind it is unknown. Many animals in nature can camouflage skillfully, but what Bruxae do is something closer to magic. They simply vanish to human eyes, without a trace. Even Witchers with their mutations can lose Bruxae if they are not careful. Should your vampire disappear during the monster hunt, I pray you have your funeral arrangements squared away.”_

_Greggor The Elder,_ The Essential Blood-feeder’s Bestiary, _2nd edition (continued)_

____

The rocky valley takes more than a week to traverse but they reach the forest beyond the Mahakam range in good time, a day ahead of schedule. Roach whinnies with quickened steps once the hard earth turns to grass and mud. They’re fortunate to have crossed the valley after the storm rains receded. Geralt says as much to a restless Jaskier as a light drizzle peppers their path. Neither of them wants to get drenched.

The night is dark under the wide canopy of the trees. Chilled, humid air cuts through Geralt’s many layers of clothing. It’s not a bother. The temperature has barely dropped enough to form frost. 

As he watches Jaskier sit with his lute in his lap and his doublet undone over the bedroll, the witcher wonders. “Are you cold?”

The bard stops tuning chords to look up. “Not really. I was in Rivia, for a bit.” One of his shoulders veers up in a shrug. “I haven’t been cold since.”

Geralt hums, but asks no more. Jaskier goes back to his lute, plucking its threads every few seconds. Once he’s satisfied, the lute is stashed away with care and a hush falls over the camp.

It should be comfortable. A few birds trill underbrush. Quite the cacophony of bugs chitter outside the boundaries of their little site. But as they turn in for the night, Geralt finds sleep hard to come. He mulls over what the bard said, switching between guilt and relief, and guilt at feeling relief. For it means Jaskier won’t shiver under threadbare sheets. As he doesn’t require anything more than blood, they burn though fewer rations of food. It leaves a sour taste in the witcher’s mouth, to be _grateful_ that Jaskier now suffers little in his body. That’s where the guilt hits hardest. 

But he cannot afford to grieve. Not when things could yet be rectified. In the morning, they’ll journey into the forest. It’s two days to the city of Carreas, where the high road connects to Vizima. Just a few more days. 

Sleep claims him no better than exhaustion.

It’s pitch dark. The fire’s just dim embers. 

Geralt isn’t sure what’s stirred him from a poorly-earned slumber. The forest floor is calm, yet his skin pricks up. Soundlessly, he sits up to spy around the camp, face taut with confusion.

But then he realizes it. It’s _too_ calm. The birds have stopped warbling. Geralt grasps the medallion ever-present around his neck. It hangs lifeless. He doesn’t understand. Dread creeps slowly up his throat, to his nervous limbs, and it peaks like the force of a punch across his face when his eyes land on a familiar doublet and a lute case. 

Jaskier isn’t in his bedroll.

Immediately, the black in his mutant eyes shifts to thin slits. The world sharpens at the center of his vision, searching for traces of a fight, of movement in the dirt. Jaskier is missing. There are no signs of struggle. He went off on his own. 

Geralt hastens to check the bedroll should there be anything out of place, but it sits as if abandoned. With painstaking focus, his pupils dilate to take in more light. The earth reveals the impression of footsteps. Just one pair. They lead into the woods.

He still doesn’t understand, but he follows the path Jaskier’s left for him whether intentionally or not.

Down into the thicket, the footsteps lose their shape. Geralt trails it as best he can. It’s at a stream that the fear turns real, as the water’s ruined the path. He has to circle the other side, picking at broken twigs to see if they mean anything. 

“Jaskier,” he calls out at one point in the eerie silence of the woods. Nothing answers back.

He keeps searching, holding the fear at bay. He won't entertain thoughts of the vampire finally succumbing to baser instincts beyond his control. He _will not._ No matter how plausible it seems the more time stretches on. He just has to remain hopeful.

A thick copse of dark trees might just grant him one last bit of help. The ground at the roots has been clearly disturbed recently. Though he cannot determine how recent, it’s a promising place to investigate. 

Geralt combs through the bushes and the low branches, making as little ruckus as possible. Should he catch any noise in the hushed night, he wants to be able to track it. That is how he picks up a muted rustle further in the thicket. The sound of leaves overturned. Carefully, should it prove that Jaskier has lost his mind and the witcher has to subdue him, he crouches. But what greets him through the safety of the undergrowth is not a half-dressed bard fang-deep in a fawn’s neck. Instead he spots a wolf.

No, not a wolf. Hunched as it is, the beast easily dwarfs every other creature in the forest. It’s a _warg._ Thick with coppery fur, with paws wider than a man’s fist. It postures in the small clearing. In its maw gleams a row of yellowed teeth. An arm could fit snugly between those jaws.

And there, just across from it and barely visible through the foliage, kneels Jaskier. Kneeling without any sign of distress at having those teeth so close to his face. 

Geralt freezes where he’s crouched. His heart skips fast like a hammer in a forge, cursing in his head for he’d left his swords by their camp. All he carries on his person is a dagger tucked inside his boots. It’s hardly sufficient against a warg as large as this one. Maybe if he’s shrewd with his signs and fast on his feet to slash its throat. 

The warg burrs a low growl at the kneeling vampire. Geralt brandishes the dagger. 

As he’s getting ready to throw himself at the beast, Jaskier makes a _shooing_ sound. 

“Go on. Leave,” the bard whispers harshly. And the warg’s deep growl stops. Its flattened ears twitch to attention.

Geralt doesn’t dare breathe.

“I said go, you big mutt. Go hunt somewhere else.” Slowly, the warg bows back. Its mouth clamps shut, wide eyes never leaving Jaskier’s hard face. 

As the beast disappears through the bushes, the bard turns his pink-lit eyes to where Geralt hides supine. 

“I don’t mean this in a rude way, but I can smell you, Geralt.”

Geralt swears a colorful rainbow under his breath, to which Jaskier adds with a touch of humor, _“And_ I can _hear_ you.”

The witcher makes no further attempt at eavesdropping. There is no need for it anymore, not by the warm lilt in Jaskier’s voice that settles his earlier fears. “What the fuck are you doing?” he still questions gruffly, because Jaskier has no business wandering off in the forest in the dead of night to _shoo wargs._

Jaskier starts to say something before he cuts himself off, frowning. Their eyes don’t quite meet. Geralt is about to question him again when the sound of wood groaning and snapping reaches his ears.

The scattered remains of footprints that had led him to the bard should have tipped him off. One person does not upturn that much earth. He should have realized it sooner. 

They are not alone in these woods.

Wood creaks again. The witcher spins to its direction and sees a shadow slip behind a tree. Silver streaks fly past his left flank, thudding onto a trunk. Throwing knives. 

“Geralt, watch out—”

He _is_ watching, but at the wrong attacker. A different knife cuts through the air and he’s not quick enough to catch it. Jaskier is, except he catches it by bodily covering Geralt’s blind side. 

The bard cries out falling against him, hissing with a solid steel blade sheathed fully into his stomach. Blood drains out of the wound like a spout. Geralt swears and grips the knife handle but hesitates to remove it lest it cause more damage.

It’s in that moment that their assailants jump out of cover to strike. They’re dressed in dark cloaks that hide their faces. No insignia rests over their breasts. Bandits. And skilled ones.

“You chose the wrong people to fuck with,” the witcher growls with red-hot anger barely contained. 

A third time they fire a knife at him, stupidly in front of his face where Geralt deflects it to the ground and, in one slick move, returns the favor with his dagger. It strikes true, right onto the bandit’s jugular. The man collapses like wet paper, choking on his own blood. 

There’s three others. He makes use of the weapon at his feet to lob it at the one that starts barking orders. It doesn’t land right, nicking hair and nose but nothing vital. In the panicked commotion that ensues, Geralt dives for his dagger stuck in a gurgling throat.

Dispatching the closest bandit from there is no trouble. His sharpened blade stabs right through spinal tissue with ease, killing one of the men instantly. But the move leaves his back open for the remaining two to target. He feels it not in the form of a knife embedding itself in his exposed side, but at a foot kicking his shin and taking away his balance, for a crucial second.

Someone seizes a fistful of his loosened hair and Geralt shouts, feet twisted on the ground. He spits out an obscene string of words, clawing at his trapper, but all it does is earn him another hard kick. This time it lands in his ribs.

“Let him go!” 

It’s Jaskier who screams, a bloody knife clenched in his hand. The very same knife that had been stuck in his gut. He looks like a ghost, golden shirt drowned in red from his chest down to his thighs. A glint of red emits inside his eyes. To their attackers, he looks like a man at death’s door. They pay him no mind, not as Jaskier struggles to sit up. Not as he keeps screaming.

“I said _let him go!”_

A hellish howl echoes nearby.

The men stop cold. They don’t see it, but Geralt with his slitted eyes can. The warg that so calmly scampered away returns at a trampling speed. 

The offensive hand wrenching his hair disappears. He hears the frantic shuffle of boots on dead leaves and a wild snarl too close to his head. But the snarling moves on, following the whimpering shouts of the two fleeing humans. 

The witcher lifts his head to a broken scream and bears witness to a grisly sight. The warg has its teeth hooked onto one of the bandit’s shoulders. It’s seconds before it rips that arm entirely free of its socket with a gushing spray.

He tears his eyes from them, grimacing. The screams last longer. 

When finally silence returns—when the horrible crunch of bone and meat is over—Geralt turns to the panting beast and stares. It stands its full height staring back with blank wolf eyes. Thick clumps of blood drip from its grinning maw.

Its eyes, empty and shining in the moon’s light, are so very wide. 

Slowly, the beast backs into the shadows again. 

“Geralt.”

Geralt snatches his eyes away to where Jaskier sits with a knife still clasped in one hand. He’s pale as death. 

“Geralt,” he calls again at the witcher’s unresponsive gaping. “Are you, are you hurt?”

“You’re asking _me_ if I’m hurt, you—Jaskier put that down and _stop moving._ Your wound—”

“It’s fine, I’m fine I promise.” The bard listens, in part, and lets the bloodied weapon fall. “Look.” 

It takes a moment for Jaskier to wriggle onto his knees and strip himself of his unsalvageable shirt, but he manages surprisingly well. Surprising for the perilous amount of blood currently seeping into the ground. But when he brushes thin fingers over the cut, the blood comes away revealing unmarred skin.

“It stopped bleeding already, see?”

Geralt huffs, hiding the way his heart seizes in his chest at seeing how fast the wound closed over. There is but a thin line of pink. Chafed skin. And Jaskier does not look the slightest bit concerned at the puddle of his own blood.

Foolish of him to forget that a vampire heals fast if left alone. He’d seen it firsthand, on that fateful night with the bruxa. Jaskier had received a crossbow bolt through his shoulder and no sooner than turning into a vampire had it healed over. The bard probably doesn’t remember it—much of that night is a blur to him too, and _he_ hadn’t been the one to die—but Geralt won’t forget how he’d dressed up Jaskier’s wounds at the inn and found hardly any to work with. More bruises than anything.

He _is_ a fool. A knife made of steel would not have hurt the vampire in any significant way. 

As he berates himself, Jaskier crowds closer on shaky limbs. “Um, Geralt? Could you help me up? It’s—it still stings. And my legs feel weak.”

At that, Geralt’s hardening expression falters. Jaskier may be a vampire, but he has only suffered grievous wounds once. Now twice. He was not made to endure battle. 

“Yeah. Come on, grab my hand.”

They make their way back to camp, not sparing the corpses of the bandits much more than a glance. There’s hardly anything left _to_ see. Geralt got his dagger back. That’s all that matters to him. That and Jaskier secure by his side.

The camp is not as far as the witcher’s first guess, which unsettles him. They slept so close to danger. But their things lay undisturbed. Roach snuffles from her perch. She’s calm, if annoyed at her disturbed sleep.

He sits Jaskier down on the nearest bedroll to check him over. It’s unnecessary, but going over the motions soothes his nerves. It also gives him time to figure out what he wants to say, to phrase it in a way that doesn’t come off as accusatory.

“You were with a warg,” Geralt says, and _immediately_ grimaces at how accusatory that sounds.

Jaskier takes it in stride, if a bit sheepish. “I could smell it. _Them._ There were more out there.” His head falls as he adds, “I didn’t want Roach to be scared.”

“So you looked for them instead?”

“I didn’t—I, it’s hard to explain, but I knew they wouldn’t try to hurt me.”

“How could you know?” Geralt’s hands brace harder on the bard’s forearms, trying to make him understand. “They’re wild animals, Jaskier. You cannot reason with an animal.”

“You’re right. I can’t _reason_ with them,” the bard snaps, “But they’ll do as I say anyway because _I’m_ the bigger monster.” 

Geralt lets go of him, taken aback by the harshness of his words. But Jaskier doesn’t stop there. He strengthens with a bitter resolve.

“I smelled others before, in the mountains. And guess what? When a pack of wargs wandered too close to camp, all I had to do was look at them and they yapped away. They’re scared of _me,_ Geralt. Those huge bloodthirsty creatures see _me_ as a threat worth avoiding.” His jaw clicks shut, eyes turning to their packs. 

Geralt tries to meet his gaze but the bard’s gone stubborn. That cold hostility—that deprecation—hurts to listen to. He wants to take the pain into himself. To do so would be his penance for failing Jaskier. He would take all his misery, his heavy conscience, for Jaskier to never feel like a monster ever again. 

“That one warg didn’t run away,” he whispers instead, because Geralt does not know how to pour his soul out with gentle words. “You’re not as scary as you think.”

Jaskier sniffs with an upturned wrinkle of his nose. A shiver rakes through him, and that bids the witcher’s hands to return on his wan skin. 

“Geralt, I’m cold.”

“I’ll bring your pack over for your spare clothe—”

“No, Geralt,” Jaskier snatches his wrist before he can stand. “I don’t need to dress. That won’t help me. I—,” his dark eyebrows pinch together, ”I need to feed. I think I lost too much blood.”

At once, the witcher settles back onto the mat. He switches the position of their hands to grasp purposely at Jaskier’s wrist. The telltale pulse underneath his fingers, though weak, soothes his sudden distress.

“Your heart is still beating.” 

“Blast what my heart is doing, I’m _cold._ I’m...I’m hungry.”

“Alright. Just give me a moment.”

It takes a bit more time, but he fits their bedrolls together. Side by side, with their packs placed almost as makeshift pillows. Better to have them close with what might still hide away in the woods. And better for them to be comfortable. 

But Jaskier, unused to patience and watching the witcher’s fussing about, finally breaks composure. 

_“Geralt.”_

“I’m here.” The leather fastenings of his suit are slippery with dew and bits of mud, but with the spaulders and the gloves removed for sleep, it’s easier work than the last time. It takes a few cursed tries before the front of his armor comes free and he can simply unbutton the front of his dark shirt, to reveal a long swathe of scarred skin down to his navel.

With so little protection, showing his neck feels almost vulnerable. But it’s Jaskier. And they’ve done this before. Not like this, admittedly, but they each know the motions by now. 

Jaskier frays at the edges, trembling, _changing,_ cuspids catching on his bottom lip before they halt their growth just as the skin threatens to break under the slightest pressure. It is like a veil of silk that slips from atop a marble statue. The details once hidden behind a careful glamor now stand out, and Geralt finds Jaskier no more frightening than usual—which is to say not frightening at all.

“Well, uh, I apologize in advance.” Geralt nods, but otherwise remains silent. He fears what his voice might give away should he speak. Should the anticipation that suddenly throbs inside his veins leave an aftertaste in Jaskier’s tongue. And what if it does, comes a terrifying realization. Jaskier, drinking his fill, and recognizing the flavor of _shame_ laced into the blood. He cannot correctly guess how the vampire might react then, if he’ll be met with disgust or mortification, or worse.

But before he can recover from the thought, those impressive fangs rest over the curve of his neck and sink through muscle as effortlessly as a needle goes through thread. Geralt’s lips part with a choked sound, not expecting the pleasure to manifest so soon. It was instant. The pain of the bite didn’t even register. Heat builds inside him, _all around_ him. He reins in another groan when Jaskier sucks, cracking open the fever inside him. 

His skin prickles where their bodies touch, in his palms clasped so tightly onto Jaskier’s arm and wrist. Geralt levels his breathing. It hitches with every gentle lap of a cold tongue, but no louder than a muted grunt. He must remain composed. It’s just feeding. Nothing more. Not what his body _thinks_ it is.

Then, in an unprecedented move, Jaskier pulls back only to bite down higher on his nape, at a sensitive stretch of skin under his jaw. 

Curved talons scratch over his chin, tilting his head to a better angle. Geralt gasps as the muscles caught in the vampire's mouth stretch. Again there is no pain, just an ever increasing warmth that evolves into kindling _need._ He scrambles to drag a pliant body onto his lap and positively _writhes_ at the weight pressing over his groin, trapped cock throbbing in time with his deafening pulse.

It does not last. The fangs slip away, though their imprint remains. He sees how Jaskier blushes, little rivulets of red dripping down the side of his red stained lips before a clever tongue swipes them up. 

Geralt feels branded. His neck burns at four different points. 

“Was that too much? Be honest,” the bardling says with a wispy voice that curls around Geralt’s brain like liquid sex. If he could string together a coherent sentence, he might say that Jaskier passed the threshold of _‘too much’_ a long time ago, as exhibited by the painful erection currently tenting Geralt’s breeches. But it seems he does not need to lend voice to that thought, as Jaskier’s eyes lower and find just where he is wanting.

He watches, powerless to stop, how Jaskier’s damning mouth darts a path over his bare chest, releasing the pressure on his lap only to replace it with twitching fingers. 

From between his open thighs comes a curious, “Is this alright?”

They hadn’t really spoken about the last time they were in a similar position, with Jaskier kneeling over Geralt’s most delicate of places with a drunk and stupefied smile on his face. There was an embarrassed acknowledgement the next morning, a sweeping under the rug, and neither of them brought it up again as they journeyed on horseback through the Mahakam. 

Geralt hadn’t contemplated that he wanted a repeat occasion. But he does now. And Jaskier does not seem so drunk off blood.

He nods sharply, not trusting his voice to keep steady. He can barely sit still under Jaskier’s scrutiny, as the vampire begins to work the buttons of his breeches free. When they’re tugged down past the cleft of his ass, the friction rips a moan out of him, hips canting blindly in search of more. 

He ought to feel embarrassed for such a show, but as Jaskier’s rough, skillful hand wraps around him, as that hand strokes him dry from root to tip—and a wet warmth welcomes the head of his cock—his mind whites out forgetting the concept of shame. There is no reason why his trembling hand grips Jaskier’s hair, other than he needs to _touch,_ to feel and pull and twist into that welcoming heat. And the heat does welcome him fully, swallowing with a gentle suction. Geralt could just about see into his own skull by how hard and how far his eyes roll. 

Nails—blunt nails, _always_ blunt—scrape down his quivering stomach, leaving pink welts that will disappear in mere minutes. Jaskier could very easily mark him up with curved talons. It’s that uncertain threat what tears Geralt’s eyes back down to the vampire, and the sight makes his gut clench tight.

Jaskier sinks down, his lips stretched wide around him with every downward dip that helps him meet the hand still wrapped at the root. He looks dazed, pupils a blown bottomless blue ringed around black. 

Their eyes meet for a split second and Jaskier’s hand comes away in search of Geralt’s on the back of his head. To bring it at the zenith of his hardworking throat. “Jask—”

He cannot get a single word in as Jaskier _hums,_ the sound urging Geralt closer to the edge of release. He feels it both under his hand and around his length, like an echo chamber of sensation that is slowly driving him mad. His hips thrust, unthinkingly, and the head of his cock catches the back of Jaskier’s tongue. 

_“Fuck,_ ” Geralt pants as he throbs heavy inside Jaskier’s mouth. It’s too much. It’s too much, he thinks, and Jaskier goes and proves him wrong as he drags himself up to the tip with a lascivious lick and sinks all the way to the root, taking every last inch of him past the pop of his throat. He knows it to be true because he feels the swell of it against his palm, and _that_ is far too much— 

Geralt outright squirms under the unbearable pressure surrounding him on all sides, hot and hard and _relentless,_ with Jaskier’s hand an immovable force to cup himself from the outside. 

Just as he thinks he’s going to burst from it, Jaskier resurfaces for air, letting go, everywhere, all at once. 

They’re both panting, though Jaskier looks absolutely _wrecked,_ teary-eyed and spit-stained, rubbing where a light red bruise is forming high on his neck. Geralt’s cock gives a superbly interested twitch at the sight. 

And Jaskier, gods be damned, _whines_ when he sees it, hard and swollen and _needing._

The vampire crawls forward to paw uselessly at Geralt’s abdomen. He slots himself neatly back over the witcher’s lap to lick under his ear, and in that way Geralt feels how affected Jaskier really is, with how he ruts against his stomach with wanton sighs.

“Geralt, _Geralt,”_ the bard sings weakly into the loose white hair sticking at his temples. “I need more.”

It’s a monumental effort to speak through the haze of pleasure banked in his gut, but he must. There’s a desperate edge to Jaskier’s lilted speech. “What more? Tell me.”

The weight of him becomes more insistent, with clawing hands scrambling to tear off the deep red trousers and his smallclothes, the last barrier between them. Geralt still wears a fair bit of clothing—though messy and unkempt, with all his buttons undone and so much of his skin exposed.

He helps him free of his trappings, momentarily winded as the first thing Jaskier does with his uncovered ass is grind urgently onto Geralt’s stiff length.

“Here. All of—all of you.” Jaskier chokes off on a wobbling moan. _“Gods,_ I burn with it.”

The words strike a chord in Geralt’s chest. He knows how it burns too well. And he would help the bardling with whatever he so needed. _Anything_ he needed. 

“Easy.” He cards tender fingers on Jaskier’s waist, to slow him down. 

_“No,_ don't go easy. You can’t hurt me. Please—”

“Give me a second—don’t rush it.”

He means when Jaskier nudges the head of his cock up between his clamoring thighs, up to the gap between his cheeks.

Geralt lays back on the bedrolls, dragging the bard with him to sit on his stomach as he fishes inside a pack for a simple phial of oil. Upon finding it, Jaskier snatches it away to pour over himself.

“I said don’t _rush.”_ But his scolding goes ignored. Greased up fingers reach back to slick Geralt up with surprising efficiency, but that’s where his exertion ends. The witcher has to physically pin Jaskier’s hands together else he fuck himself raw. 

“Fuck, Jaskier, let me at least do this _right.”_

The bard twitches a few times but otherwise stops moving. Just long enough for Geralt to take the spilled oil and wet the fingers of one hand. 

He urges the panting vampire forward, to his elbows, as he strokes slicked digits down over his backside. He’s so hot to the touch, hotter still when he presses inside past one knuckle.

Though it must surely be killing him inside, Jaskier sits still, only rolling his hips every few seconds against Geralt’s chest with quieted noises. He makes an obscene display—with his unfocused, glassy eyes, his slack jaw full of pointed cuspids. The elegant bow of his back as fingers stretch him open. 

Every one of his breathy sighs demands Geralt’s attention, begging to be ravished by tongue and teeth and finger alike. He does his best with two, delving deeper with each thrust. At three, Geralt grinds down and spreads wide, coaxing a groan out of the vampire when he stumbles upon that sweet, sensitive knob inside of him. 

It will have to be enough because his endless patience and care has burnt to a candlewick’s end. He needs—he _wants_ just as much now as he did under his bloody bites. Maybe more so, as he’s held off the precipice for so long he can almost _taste_ release. It dances before him in the shape of a naked bard breathing his name over and over. 

Taking his fingers out is almost torture for Jaskier’s mournful whimper, but he quickly tenses feeling the cockhead prod the rim of his ass. The muscle gives way, spreading open for him at the crown. He flushes a lovely pink when Geralt pulls back to the very tip and starts the process again, pushing more and more at the tight ring straining to let him in. 

_“G-gods, Geralt,_ why are you so _big._ Just— _fuck me.”_

He breaches past the thick head with a measured thrust and— _gasps_ as Jaskier’s insides grip him like a tight vice. Jaskier trembles above him, nails digging into a meaty pair of shoulders. 

“Fuck, I’m— _fuck,"_ he can’t utter much more as he sets his hands on the bard’s thighs to raise him up and ever so incrementally fuck him down, down until slowly, Jaskier stretches to fit the size of him. Geralt cannot imagine how he expected to take him at all, for even three fingers is not enough. 

It is only when the friction becomes too much again and he starts to lose his rhythm that the bard takes charge, lips parted wide with a matching lewd expression. He drags himself up on grounded knees and slaps hard against Geralt’s hips, again and again, panting— _keening_ when it brings him to the perfect angle. He falters when that happens, and Geralt can only groan pitifully beneath him, his grip turning painful and leaving handprints as Jaskier seizes around him—as he keeps thrusting down chasing release, stuttering to a halt when he finally spills on the witcher’s stomach. 

Geralt is not far behind. Even as Jaskier is finished and sprawling onto his chest, he rams his cock onto that pliant, well-fucked ass, seeking _his_ fill. He takes, stuttering his release to the sound of Jaskier’s wavering humming. 

They lay together, a heap of limbs and drying spend, just breathing. 

Jaskier is the first to shift up, rolling Geralt halfway out before sinking back to the hilt. The oil still slicks the way. After their vigorous fucking, there’s hardly any resistance.

Geralt’s broad hands come up to seize it. He cannot take any more, not without the excuse of a vampire’s enrapturing bite. And perhaps Jaskier remembers himself because he stops, withdrawing with a halting tremble in his thighs. 

It’s an effort to make his voice sound higher and clearer than gravelstone. “You good?” 

Jaskier simply hums, though the hum wanes into a fickle melody more so felt against his chest than in his ear. A grunt interrupts it when Geralt wraps him close by the waist.

Guilt washes over him at the bruises blooming over the bard’s skin. They smart a vibrant red on his thighs, his throat, at the meat of his hips, standing out against pale skin. Even where it’s flushed pink.

But his sullen mood must be so very obvious, as gentle fingers comb through his white hair and pry tangles free. 

“It’s alright,” he says low, into the curve of a scarred shoulder, “I didn’t want you to hold back. You can’t hurt me, not as I am now.”

Of course he’s right. Jaskier is no longer as fragile as human make. They both realize this with the passing weeks. With this last night alone. Yet the witcher still feels the need to keep him away from danger. To hide him from the world, and protect the Jaskier he knew. 

“We should dress,” the bard adds, though he makes no move to rise to the task.

Geralt holds him close, his heart pounding against the tightening brace of his ribcage. “Let me catch my breath.”

He doesn’t need a moment for that. But if he hugs Jaskier a bit too long, and a bit too firmly, no one else is nearby to judge him.

____

_“Vampires do not live in caves and haunted forests. They are not monsters in the dark. They live among us, like elves, halflings and dwarves. Do not fall for paranoid rumors. Vampires are an ancient race that entered our world at the Conjunction of the Spheres. They have culture and intelligence, and a history that far outlives ours._

_But they are not men. Have no fear of them, but do not become comfortable with their hidden presence. Vampires still thirst for blood, though myth has perpetuated the idea that they are slaves to instinct. They do not burn under the sun. They have the strength to crush a man’s skull in their bare hands._

_Most of all, be wary not to fall under a vampire’s thrall. Those of a weaker constitution may find themselves like tame beasts to their whims.”_

_Master Antoninus of Ban Gleán,_ Vampires: Facts and Myths

____

_(A handwritten note, grapheme on parchment. It is written in Common. Parts of it are indecipherable. A few sentences have been crossed out.)_

_the warg is concerning. he’s unaware of making thralls._ _dangerous_ _. others will notice if it happens in the city._

____

“What’s that you have there?”

Geralt lifts his face from the wrinkled parchment in his lap to meet Jaskier’s curious eyes. He’d believed the bard to have fallen asleep, as was his due at such late hour. In the solitude of dusk, Geralt can meditate on the day’s passing. To take note of their progress. 

It’s become a ritual to keep himself calm and, hard as it is to admit, hopeful. But it seems a restlessness bothers the maturing vampire. As his nightly reverie has been interrupted, Geralt sits up, opening his hands around the object in his lap.

“This?” He grabs the parchment by a corner. “It’s just something I’ve been doing.”

Jaskier peers down at the parchment, though he might not read much of what’s in it, on account of Geralt’s ghastly writing. “Ah. What about?”

Self-conscious of its contents, he tries to brush it aside. “Keeping track of the days. And other things.”

“ _‘Other things,’_ huh? Like me?” 

Geralt offers a slight nod. He won’t lie to him. 

To his amazement, it doesn’t upset the bard. He showed much more contempt in the morning after the bandits— _the morning after his last feeding_ —upon realizing his new shirt had been ruined. A shirt not even a month old. 

“May I see?”

“It’s...not private,” Geralt says aloud, more to himself, to remember that this involves Jaskier and he has a right to know the things that he as a witcher has written of his account.

But Jaskier doesn’t snatch the parchment from his hand. Instead he smiles. 

“That’s not a yes.”

Geralt grunts, at length passing his work to Jaskier’s empty hands. “Have at it.”

“I wasn’t _complaining,_ you don’t—ah, well alright.” 

His lettering is truly appalling, and it’s obvious the bard can barely make out anything legible to his eyes. That being said, there’s no playful mock or teasing score as Jaskier goes over the parchment. He’s wearing a proper face of interest, merely accented by confusion every few seconds. 

“Interesting, from what I can read. What’s this about thralls?”

“It’s something not all vampires can do. Kind of like mind control, but executed differently.”

“And...I’m doing that?” A different kind of confusion colors the bard’s face. It’s not as impassive as before. “Geralt have I—did I force you to do something against your will? Did—”

“No.” He cuts off that train of thought, seeing the slow building tremble in Jaskier’s voice. “Witchers are immune to enthrallment. And mind control. I wrote that in reference to something else. Think the warg.”

“Oh. You...you mean how it listened to me?”

“It didn’t _listen._ It obeyed. There’s a distinction.” 

The witcher notices how tense Jaskier gets at the explanation. “And what of people then? Should I be careful not to tell someone to jump off a cliff?”

“It isn’t always that easy, no. The person must be... _susceptible_ to suggestion. But it is still a dangerous power to have. You need to be careful around humans.”

Jaskier nods, his expression shuttering into something distant as he replaces the notes back in the witcher’s hands. “Humans. Right.”

It was badly worded. Geralt realizes it too late—the bard’s already shuffled off to fix his bedroll for sleep.

Once again, the burden of his concern gets lost in translation.

____

_“I am fortunate in this strange and exciting life to have a vampire for a friend._

_This I say with great pride. He has taught me many things about the world outside the fair city Oxenfurt— Things I will share with you in this journal of mine._

_(Since I care deeply for his safety, I will henceforth refer to him as Master R:)_

_Late one evening, Master R indulged me in some curious questions I held about vampire society. He was quick to correct me in saying that ‘‘society’ is a strong word.’ They live under tribes older than the Conjunction of the Spheres in our world. As such, their traditions are a touch antiquated._

_My first question was simple. So much myth surrounds vampires that I had to ask if a human could truly be turned under a dark spell or by taking the blood of a vampire. He denied such a thing being possible, calling it fanciful human imagination. There was no animosity in his response. I then asked Master R how vampires were born, and he was quick to divulge some details. As well as I can remember, nothing about the process is any different from our own. One cultural difference: they are not a strictly monogamous race. Every full moon, they perform for each other in flight and take many partners. Vampire children are often conceived at these fetes._

_I finally asked Mr. R what it meant for a vampire to find a partner, as he explained that his kind is not too interested in pairing for life. He said it in simple terms, and so I share, simply, in this page. Vampires ‘claim’ partners. It is both possession and a complete devotion. Once they find someone that is theirs, no one and nothing may get between them. This is how the common belief of vampire nests (of a lord with many wives) was born.”_

_Sir Deagan,_ Memoirs, Journal no.4. 

_(Original burned. Copied from Oxenfurt Academy’s_ ‘Bestia Compendium.’ _)_

____

There’s a magic shop in the outskirts of Vizima. So say the Temerians who Geralt meets on the way to the capital city. A couple even tell him they’ve gone for themselves and found the sorceress to be well worth the coin. She’s doing fanciful spells for otherwise gullible people, for which the witcher bears no criticism. It’s her magic. If she wants to spend it humoring rich city folk, she will. 

And when he comes upon the shop, she is there to greet him.

“Yennefer.”

Her head is bent over a green phial. At the sound of his voice, she straightens. Her violet gaze hides no surprise at the visit. 

“Geralt.” A tick of a second lapses as her eyes focus over his left. “And Jaskier.” 

Another tick. Something passes over her face too quickly for him to decipher.

“Though, not quite the same Jaskier, is it?”

Leather creaks as Geralt clenches a fist. He does not like how she learned that precious bit of information with a simple look. Witchers have their sight and their sense of smell, but if a sorcerer can tell that the bard is not all he seems, that spells the risk of exposure—and with the wrong crowd, a manhunt.

“I’ve been expecting you for some time, witcher. Can’t say this is how I imagined our reunion.” Upon her approach, Yennefer trails manicured nails over his arm. The light scent of lilac and gooseberries drifts from her hair, and Geralt perks at the familiarity of it. It saturates all her things. Often he wonders if the sorceress infused it magically into her skin.

No sooner does she hover than Jaskier pushes into his vision, right between him and the witch. Her touch and her smell fade to spearmint and dried blood. 

Geralt blinks. Yennefer pries her keen eyes off him to lay them on the bard. “I must say that is _one_ way to get my attention. Tell me, what finally did you in?”

“It’s a secret,” the bard interjects with fake delight. 

Geralt hauls Jaskier back to his side with a stern, “It’s not inside these walls.” A question sticks to his lips. He chooses to let it go. “It was a vampire. A bruxa, to be more precise. He...turned.”

“That’s preposterous." It's a casual retort from the witch. "Humans cannot be turned into vampires.”

“This one did.”

There’s anger building in his chest at how little she seems to care. But anger won’t help solve anything, so he smothers the feeling before it grows into a senseless monster.

“Yen, you have to help him.”

She glances between them for a long moment, lingering significantly on Jaskier. Whatever she sees is enough for her to make a decision and return to her desk of colorful phials. 

“I can’t,” the sorceress says with her back turned. 

Geralt’s gut drops to the floor.

“You haven’t even given it a try—”

“I say this not to be cruel, Geralt. I cannot. There are rules to what magic can and cannot do, and while I may occasionally bend the rules, I cannot _break_ them.” There, she pauses to face him—to show that she is serious. “Once humanity is lost, it cannot be regained. You and I both know that too well.”

Geralt was once a human child, but now he is not. Now he is a mutant, and there is no undoing the transformations his body has undergone in the long decades of his life. Yennefer, too, has sacrificed something great in the process of her magical education, and though she fights to reclaim it, the natural laws of Chaos and Order have yet to yield to her will.

No one’s ever known a vampire turned from a human. It takes speaking with the sorceress to understand that no one will ever know a human _unturned_ from a vampire. 

“So that’s it then,” Jaskier raps at them, his voice a hard, frigid shower. “The proud witch tells you there’s naught to be done about it unless one of us spontaneously learns how to reverse time. Could have probably spared us the trip if you wrote a letter.”

Geralt feels the weight of the last weeks settling over his shoulders. The finality of Jaskier’s fate. The truth he’d been desperately trying to avoid. Jaskier is dead, and that will be his sentence till the day he dies again. 

He stands silent, his mind a blank slate for what he is supposed to do—for what _they_ are supposed to do about Jaskier’s strenuous grip on every newfound power. His physical form fringes on passive concentration now, a sure improvement since the first days in Rivia. But what of his enhanced senses should they be battered by too much stimuli? What of his voice? Of yet undiscovered complications?

He will not find any of the answers he seeks in a magic shop in Vizima. Though, it appears that Yen is not quite ready to let them walk out the door yet.

“I said I can’t help you undo what has been done, but may I suggest someone who has far more experience with beast taming?”

“Jaskier’s not an animal,” he growls, unchecked anger coming back twofold—

Something physically holds him back from starting a fight.

It’s Jaskier who stays his hand. The blue of his eyes has warmed considerably from their icy storm. 

“Not what I meant, Wolf. See, there’s a mage who specializes in monster study and monster rehabilitation. Haven’t met him personally, but I’ve heard impressive accounts of him by way of other mages. Maybe he’s dealt with vampire younglings?” Her lithe hands flutter into a complex sign and a quill jumps to life, scratching something over a thin piece of parchment. “The other solution is finding a vampire clan and dropping your bard with them.”

The quill stops its task. A second sign sends the parchment soaring up and rolling into a tight scroll. Geralt catches it in the air as it flies in his direction, though Jaskier eyes the parchment with distrust.

The idea of a tribe taking in Jaskier makes Geralt grimace.

“That’s not happening, Yen. They wouldn’t accept an outsider into their tribe. We’ll speak with this mage. Where can we find him?”

The sorceress twiddles with one of the phials at her desk as if distracted by something _more_ intriguing than a human-vampire at her doorstep.

“Yen,” he calls more forcefully, not liking her sudden reluctance. 

He works the scroll open to read what it says and immediately understands.

“It would please you to no end, I bet, to know he lives in Blaviken.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those wondering, a _Compendium_ is an essential collection of information.


	4. III. Metamorphosis, Expanded

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Chapter warnings:** Brief M/F (non-explicit) and accidental use of mind control.

' _Jaskier, listen to me._ '

' _What—who, who is...? Yennefer? What’s this? Are you doing some freaky mind sorcery on me?_ '

' _Don’t get so nervous. I’m projecting thoughts into that inflated head of yours. It’s harmless magic._ '

' _You’re reading my mind, you mean. Well, I’m not nervous so much as miffed. Get out of my head or I’ll think of some obnoxiously loud brass horns._ '

' _Just empty your head and listen. You and I may agree on one thing only, and that is on Geralt._ '

' _What are you implying?_ '

' _Where you go, witchers are no longer welcome, even_ with _your flattering songs circling the Continent. Blaviken has not forgotten its Butcher. Do you understand, bardling? No one will answer to him. No one will lift a finger to help him. And he will likewise not expect them to._ '

' _Good thing_ I’ll _be there to ask the questions and beg for all the help then._ '

Jaskier does not see it as his back is turned to her, but he swears Yennefer is smiling. 

Up in Vizima, the streets quite literally vibrate with life. The wind that blows down from the north beats hard against the city’s banners. A stream of sun-bleached fabric flaps over watchtower walls, creating a sound not unlike hundreds of homing pigeons taking flight. Down at street level, the wind is more or less an impish little devil sending unpinned hats flying.

Temerians themselves are a boisterous bunch. Crowds gather in every tavern to clap and stomp to the beat of a smalltime busker, their leather purse getting heavier by the hour. Everyone has a neighbor to greet and business to attend to. Vizima is a very busy, very _noisy_ city. 

It’s a bit overwhelming at first, after so long spent on the road with just Geralt for company, but the cheery air makes it all worth it. Jaskier used to love visiting the big cities nearer to the coast precisely for their pomp and their preference for daily parties. 

“Is it too much?”

Geralt, of course, immediately notices his discomfort, but Jaskier waves his worries away. “Not yet. It’s good, really. I’ve missed this.”

They round the market street with an even louder crowd and a beer garden to boot. Geralt keeps an arm around Jaskier’s shoulders and it’s—it’s easy and natural, how he moves to cover Jaskier’s right side and shield him from the chaos.

“I promised to get you the help you needed,” Geralt says to his ear in a low voice. “We will go see this mage and he will help us.” 

“Or else you’ll threaten him with bodily harm, I bet? That’s sweet of you, but...it’s alright. We don’t have to rush. I should take the time to adjust.” Jaskier shrugs under the weight of that large arm. “For the foreseeable future.” 

Being in a city as grand and rich as Vizima means a plentiful array of fashionable clothes wherever they go. Unfortunate that Jaskier’s new set has been ruined so soon, but he has _some_ coin to spare for something that doesn’t carry stains in the suspicious shape of a blood splatter. He’s lucky the deep red dye of his last suit helps to conceal said stains from lazy onceovers. Getting fabric measured of a similar shade would be adequate, just in case. Something tells him he’s going to ruin a lot more clothes before long.

The problem is he’s running low on funds. They both are. Geralt needs to take a contract if he is to get enough to pay for a few nights’ stay at a decent inn, and Jaskier has to get back into busking if his purse is to pay for more clothes. And for dinners too. Though food no longer nourishes him, he does not want Geralt carrying all the monetary burden. 

He really should get back to busking. The tavern inn they’re eating in is the perfect place to return to the music scene. Someone playing a pan flute is getting the crowd started, but as it happens with wind players, they can’t easily sing and play at the same time. It’s Jaskier’s chance to break out the lute, join them for an accompanying tune.

Someone recognizes him before he can decide.

The fellow at the bar serves the witcher two mugs, glancing to the side to see the bard twiddling with his lute case. “Oh! Forgive me, but you’re the famous Jaskier, are you not? Of Oxenfurt fame?”

Jaskier offers a warm smile, though he doesn’t feel it. “Yes, the very same. Good eye, sir. And this is my good friend, Geralt of Rivia.”

The fellow’s eyes widen, obvious recognition for the White Wolf now that he’s connected the dots between his two new patrons. It’s always fun seeing how people react to Geralt, when it’s not headed in a bad direction. And judging by the barman’s awe—and by an eavesdropping group of young lads peering closer—the White Wolf is well-received in old Vizima.

“Have those drinks on the house, masters. If you’re looking for a tavern to grace with your song, our evening crowd would welcome you with applause.”

An opportunity. Luck smiles down at him.

And yet, Jaskier shakes his head with a proper expression of apology. “You flatter me, and I would be honored on any other day, but,” he takes a breath that turns into a sigh. “But I’ve come down with...with a cold recently, and I’ve only just recovered from it. I’m to rest my voice if I want it in good shape.”

“Of course, sir. You needn’t explain more. I pray to the goddess for your swift recovery.”

“Me too,” he mutters to himself, though not low enough for Geralt to miss. The witcher had been watching him closely for the entire exchange. 

They go to a quieter corner and eat—which is to say, Geralt buys two small platters of meat and cheese and slowly he nicks pieces from Jaskier’s plate so no one is any wiser for the bard’s lack of appetite. If anyone says anything, they can blame it on his ‘sickness.’

Other than the food, they don’t share any words, which isn’t at all uncomfortable or strange for Geralt. He gets like that sometimes, after seeing Yennefer of Vengerberg, and so Jaskier, used to Geralt’s periods of silence, leaves him to his thoughts. Jaskier himself spares a moment to think and look back on their brief time with the sorceress. 

He can admit to immature behavior. It’s embarrassing, especially since she offered her help in the end, but when she’d touched the witcher, an inexplicable anger lanced him through the chest and he just, moved, made himself a barrier between them—

No, it wasn’t anger. It was—something intense. Something selfish and possessive. 

Examining that feeling closely draws a blank. Jaskier doesn’t understand where it came from. Whatever it is, he’ll handle it at a future date. For now, he’s stuck listening to a pan flute rendition of Temeria’s spring dance, without the chorus. 

It’s enjoyable, he’ll give the flutist that. A few of the folks in the tavern even throw some coins into the bard’s open rucksack. They are quite the welcoming flock of Temerians, just as the barman said.

He’s starting to regret his choice to pass the night watching from the sidelines, but it was that or singing with no real grasp of how his voice might affect a crowd of humans. _Humans,_ well. _That’s_ something he needs to get used to in the privacy of his head. Another thing to be careful not to let slip, more like.

Once both their platters are empty, Geralt rises from his seat, dragging the bard away from his winding thoughts.

“I’m heading upstairs.”

“Alright,” Jaskier moves to follow, as is his due. Before he can stand, however, Geralt gestures for him to stop. 

Puzzled, he remains seated, waiting.

“Yes? Something up?” Yellow cat-eyes stare at him for a long moment. 

Wordlessly, the witcher brings his hands back down to his sides. There, they clench into fists.

He seems to be coming to a decision.

“You don’t have to come with me. Stay here. You said you missed this,” Geralt jerks his chin to the gathered party and even the twiddling musician. “Try to enjoy it again.”

“But—”

“You’ve gotten used to it, haven’t you? The noise. And the smell.”

Jaskier gawks at the witcher. There is quite a bit of that in the room, noise and smell. Cheese breath, unwashed clothes. Clatter, glass breaking, drunks yelling and dogs barking. None of it bothers him. It’s strange, but, he’s learning that if he takes slow breaths through his mouth, the smell of sweat and filth doesn’t offend his sensitive nose. And if he rubs his fingers together like before a snap, it distracts from the echoing voices trapped in the low-ceiling room. 

He _has_ gotten used to it, just like he got used to retracting his long nails and keeping his ears round.

His answering silence is enough for the witcher to repeat, “Stay here. Tomorrow we’ll take to the road again. Tonight, take your time.” Turning around, Geralt says to him over his shoulder, “If you need me, you know where to find me.”

Their rooms are on the second floor on the opposite side of the stairs that lead to the tavern and although Geralt holds the key, he never locks the door when Jaskier dawdles downstairs. It’s what they do when they share a room. Been that way for years.

Jaskier watches the witcher disappear up the stairs. Then, with no one to focus on, he jumps from watching the happy folk whistling along to the music, to the youths betting drinks over dice, to the couples gathered around the bar. 

For the first time in weeks, Jaskier is left alone. He takes his time relearning what to do in the absence of Geralt.

A rowdy boy with a mandolin replaces the pan flutist. It would be rude to take the stage so soon after the change, so he sits with his beer, untouched and lukewarm. 

He’s wondering what to involve himself in now—plenty of people around to converse with and hear what’s happening in the world—when a woman approaches him right as the music builds to a romantic ballad.

“Master bard,” she curtsies with a bold scarlet-glossed smile. “Forgive my intrusion. We’ve not met, but I am a heartfelt fan of your work. I was at the annual music festival in Novigrad last year, and the year before. Yours is always a most excellent performance.”

“Thank you,” he says and rises from his seat to bow minutely, “I didn’t win first place for nothing.”

“Oh I know, master Jaskier.” Her smirk turns meek then. He feels back in his old skin again, finding the tells that give away the purpose behind the friendly chatter. His reputation does precede him. “Forgive me again,” the lady insists, “I overheard you speak with the barman. My sincerest condolences for your voice.”

“Ah, a little nosy, are we?”

“A little,” she smiles, not at all ashamed for his lighthearted teasing. “But you’re a famous man, a true troubadour of the Continent. Anyone who recognizes your name and face would be nosy too.” 

She’s right, which is part of the problem he faces going forward. Thinking about it will ruin his rising mood, so he tucks that worry away to reflect on it in the morning. Tonight, he is to take his time.

“My lady, you flatter me when I cannot live up to the praise.”

A giggle escapes past her lips. They speak of everyday matters after that. He tosses in some musical commentary, she some city gossip. It’s nice. 

A maid brings them each a beer at the lady’s command. He accepts the offer, though the mug sits neglected in his palm while their talk turns personal. 

With her head tilted down, she admits to initially seeking the bard out for a less innocent reason than admiration. His reputation truly _does_ precede him among women, “But you’ve shown an unexpectedly charming side, master Jaskier. I took you for a rascal. A good lay, definitely, but a rascal nonetheless.”

“I may yet prove you right, my lady,” he quips with a wink. 

“Hush, you’re just saying that.”

“Not at all, my lady.”

His plain sarcasm brings a genuine smile out of her. Those are always beautiful to see, along with confidence and comfort, and she looks to have both in his presence. 

She scoots closer to him, her elbow grazing the soft fabric covering his wrist. The touch could almost be accidental. 

Jaskier contemplates her, surprised to discover the intimate offer doesn’t wake anything in him. He is meant to take his time, do as he pleases with a measure of caution, to familiarize himself with humans again. 

“Normally, I would accept such lovely advances,” he finds himself saying instead, “But you’ve caught me at a regrettable time. I...well, I cannot explain why, but I must decline. I don’t wish to lead you on into the late hours of the night.”

Before he scrambles to soften the bluntness of his rejection, the lady—Bea, he corrects himself—calms him with a gentle hand over his arm. “You do not owe me an explanation. I enjoyed our time together.”

He rises from the table, bowing to her politely. “I as well.”

Right as he is about to depart she adds in a private voice meant just for him, “If you happen to change your mind, my door is right up the stairs, to the left. It need only be tonight. I doubt I would be so lucky as to ‘catch’ you a second time.”

Geralt blinks in surprise when he walks into the room earlier than midnight. A very unusual occurrence for Jaskier. If it had been like any other night—if it had been like any other night _before—_ he would not be seen until the dawn’s early light peaks through the horizon, and not without smelling of women’s perfumes, perhaps wearing one less article of clothing. As it happens, Jaskier goes to his bed fully dressed while the tavern crowd roars downstairs. 

Sharp eyes observe his slow meandering. The room is dark, though not at all a hindrance for either of its hosts.

“That a light perfume I smell on you?” 

For once, Jaskier is the one acting reticent. The night’s proceedings weigh in his mind, or rather, his disinterest in them. He’d done nothing but sit in a corner and speak with a woman whose promising company he later forwent. He doesn’t want to talk about it, but it seems he does not need to for the witcher to take a guess. Bea’s soft fragrance lingers superficially. Not an inch of Jaskier’s clothes shows signs of being removed and redressed.

He can just about _hear_ the frown in Geralt’s voice. 

“You turned her down.”

“Yes,” Jaskier acquiesces as he works his shoes off. “I don’t...I don’t know. Should I not have? With me being like _this,”_ he gestures broadly at himself, “I don’t know if it’s safe, exactly. I could hurt her.” 

“Jaskier.”

The call of his name distracts from his undressing, but it’s the following huff of air what captures his attention. “Hmm?”

“You give yourself little credit.” To his great confusion, the witcher immediately follows that with a faint, “Are you cold?”

Jaskier knows what he’s really asking. “No. You know I’m not so insatiable.”

“Then,” the witcher turns on his stomach, half-finished with their conversation, “You won’t hurt her.”

It is such simple logic. He is not hungry—he therefore has no reason to accidentally hurt someone. Being that it depends on Jaskier’s self-control in the throes of passion, however, he is not so sure it is as simple as the witcher frames it.

But he trusts Geralt's opinion more than he trusts himself. “Is it really alright?” he still asks, not really sure what he’s asking for or why he’s asking it. 

Once the words are out, he can’t take them back. Maybe it’s good that Geralt’s expression is hidden from him. 

“We’ll be going through the bigger cities on the way to Blaviken. Easier travel, faster too. We can’t— _you_ can’t hide away under a cold forever. That’s bound to attract the wrong kind of attention.”

The nod Jaskier gives goes unseen. He agrees out loud in the next second for Geralt’s benefit. 

His is a vibrant, recognizable face. Bea put it best—people are bound to be nosy if his new subdued manner continues. 

He thinks about it for a long time. Geralt remains quiet, his back facing the room. On the off-chance he fell asleep early, Jaskier moves noiselessly to fit his shoes on again. Considering how not so long ago he’d successfully slipped away to the wilderness and left a sleeping witcher undisturbed, Jaskier is fairly confident in his ability to sneak out unnoticed.

The time is no later than midnight. There’s no one in the hallway.

Right, time to stop hiding so much. First, he contemplates going back to the bar, but at the top of the stairs he reconsiders what motive he has besides wasting coin on drinks he won’t enjoy. To his right stands lady Bea’s door, which he hesitates to knock on. 

Whatever for, he doesn’t know. She is just an ordinary woman and he is welcome to enter. 

_Enjoy yourself,_ Jaskier thinks with tremendous force. He is to enjoy human things again. Human connections, human relations, the brevity of human intimacy.

He knocks lightly on the hard wood door. It opens to a scarlet smile. 

“Change your mind after all?”

They exchange brief words—the pretense of formality—but that quickly becomes a tiring thing for both of them to maintain. They move matters to the room’s single bed.

Bea is floral fragrance and the taste of plums. She kisses with fervor and draws her nails over the wrinkles of his shirt. She is a dedicated lover, and that dedication is daunting to meet as he is. What if he gives too much, or too hard? What if he scares her with too-sharp teeth?

And there the bard goes, giving himself little credit when he’s got a perfect grasp on the odd sort of body glamor over his skin. Bea’s heartbeat flutters under his splayed hands, and it doesn’t make him swoon or ache dangerously. 

The world fades to the background. The woman Bea hungers for the kind of touch and affection that Jaskier has learned to kindle in people’s hearts. She wants to be wanted, and he is good at wanting people. She wants to be revered by a sensitive and attentive lover, and he is _very_ good at being an attentive lover. It is in the middle of bringing her to completion that he dimly remembers he could very well treat her to a new kind of pleasure. The only kind something like him can bring, as he has so earnestly learned with Geralt. 

He is not hungry, so he does not doubt his self-control. Confidence carries him forward. 

The bite goes unnoticed, but she shudders in his arms all the same.

Blood instantly wells to the surface and he takes care to lap the red drops up before they stain her gown or the bedspread. Despite his better sensibilities, he measures the iron-heavy taste that spreads over his tongue.

But the blood feels too-thick and—murky. The taste makes him grimace in the dark, as it is just—it’s blood. It’s not rich. It’s not _good._

It’s—disgusting.

And though the woman Bea is pliant and responsive in all the right ways, he can’t shake the feeling that it _feels_ wrong. Like a facsimile of a play, watered down for peasant entertainment. There’s no flair. No bursting heat or rapturous pleasure for him. The woman Bea arches her spine and he scents her building pleasure, her lust—he tastes it faintly through her blood. But the blood itself becomes cloy. 

Geralt’s blood never soured. It was a pleasure to have on its own. He hates _this._ He hates that it isn't Geralt's. He hates—

He hates that it’s not Geralt.

It hits him like a robber in the night. He wants Geralt. He _only_ wants Geralt. And for some gods-damned reason, he cannot stomach any other’s blood _but_ Geralt’s. 

The woman Bea with her scarlet lips asks after his slowed movements and distracted fondling. Not since he was a teenager learning his way around skirts and bodices has he lost his focus. 

He apologizes to her with genuine affect and makes his quick parting worth her trouble. He is never one to leave his partners wanting. Though by her dismissive tone, he need not trouble himself on her behalf. It is regrettable that he couldn’t get satisfaction out of it, but she wishes to have him enthused, not obligated.

She sees him to the door. Her skin flushes pink down to her chest. The pin prick marks on her neck go unmentioned. He cannot help feeling a tad remorseful, but no real harm was done by them. In a day’s time, the marks will have faded to spots easily mistaken for red moles. Odd blemishes. 

Geralt, ever a light sleeper, stirs to see the bard cast his clothes off and onto the floor.

“Jaskier?”

“I tried drinking tonight. Everything’s fine,” he is quick to add when Geralt sits upright in a lightning’s flash. “Really. I was careful.”

“The woman you turned down?”

“Yes. We shared a private moment. And she _was_ having a swell time, right up until I ran away. I just—” He runs the tip of his tongue over his gums and makes a pinched face. “I couldn’t stand it. Didn’t like the taste. Could you pass me your waterskin?”

“You ran away?” Geralt shakes his head, stretching to fetch his bag. “Wait, you didn’t like the—taste?” 

“Found it a tad disgusting to my palate, actually. Color me surprised. Thank you,” Jaskier says to the offered sip of water. It helps, a bit. A second sip clears more of the coppery aftertaste. “Surely it’s inconsequential if I find her blood unappealing, but...but, ah, I don’t want to feed again. Not from strangers. I suppose we won’t have to worry about me developing an addiction. That’s one blessing in disguise.”

The night’s gone to waste, both as a human and a vampire. Truth be told, he’d been bored for most of the evening. _Bored,_ with so many people to pick apart and observe. With a willing partner to spend the dark hours with. 

None of those people were his witcher. Only in his witcher’s company does he feel like his old self again, and not _pretending_ to be his old self.

There’s something wrong with him. Something’s _changed, in_ him. Before his turning, he would occasionally miss Geralt, maybe wonder about his day, reminisce when the fancy struck him. Jaskier had a life.

Now he lives like an animal. Geralt’s smell, his things, his blood—they grant him the satisfaction he ought to be drawing from people like Bea. 

And what of Geralt? What does Geralt make of him, of what he’s becoming?

This time, the witcher lays on his stomach facing him. Jaskier catches the frown hidden under a streak of messy white locks. 

“Are you content with my blood?”

His throat aches when he says, far too honestly, “I would be content with whatever you give me.”

A couple of days later sees them in Oxenfurt’s isle. 

Jaskier takes deep wistful breaths for every bakery they pass. Walking the streets brings back memories of early morning lectures, of a missus that was kind enough to sell him two loaves of bread at a discount at the end of every week. 

There’s a story to be told in every street corner of the years under the academy’s tutelage. Some stories he vocalizes to Geralt. A few are about eccentric partners—and a few more about getting drunk and passing out on his schoolmates’ shoulders. Geralt gives him a bemused sort of stare, but listens well to his reminiscing. 

A straightforward contract for ghouls affords them a night’s stay, something they both take advantage of at the witcher’s behest. The academy is quite possibly the only other place outside the old witcher keeps with a library worthy of obscure monster research. Once they’re settled at the heart of the city, Geralt argues that it would do them good to check Oxenfurt’s library out. 

It takes the better part of the morning for Jaskier to win the current headmaster over—and then the librarian, and then the librarian’s _historian_ —to allow them entry. Jaskier may be a graduate, but those of the academy love their books too much to let a grimy witcher touch their old tomes carelessly. He has to reassure them over and over that said witcher will treat their precious books with more care than all of Oxenfurt’s first years combined.

He was a first year once. He speaks from experience.

They’ve been reading in silence for nearly an hour when Geralt blurts with no prior lead up, “I have a theory.”

Jaskier stops perusing the _First Encyclopedia of Necrophages_ to glance up at his witcher, who frowns over a fat tome with the word _Bestia_ inscribed onto its spine. 

“Well don’t leave us in suspense. What is it?”

Geralt’s thumb hovers over a heavily inscribed page. “I’ve been thinking since we visited Yen. I don’t believe you’re actually a vampire. It doesn’t make sense with what we know of them. That you’ve adopted vampiric traits from the bruxa that—” 

He breaks off to look around at the walls, as if they could eavesdrop. They might just, considering how many professors knew when their students had been using library hours to sleep or sneak off. 

“The bruxa that killed me,” Jaskier finishes for him in a low voice.

“Right. That you’ve inherited her hunger and some of her formidable tricks is remarkably exceptional. It’s easy to think of you as just a newborn bruxa, but you turning into a vampire is as likely as any human spontaneously turning into a dwarf.”

“So not likely at all,” Jaskier agrees, “Unless there’s a spell or a curse for that.”

“Which isn’t likely either, but a possibility still. Then there’s the most likely option, which is that you came back undead and...somehow _changed_ in the process. We should treat your condition like that of an undead ghoul first, forget vampires.” 

Geralt rearranges their collection of open books and unspooled scrolls on the table. “This compendium,” he continues, his pointer finger sliding over the _Bestia’_ s open pages, “It mentions how alghouls and graveirs could have mutated from ghouls when they came into our world and met a different ecosystem.”

Now Jaskier frowns, losing Geralt’s train of thought. He leans over the table to read the page in question, see if it has any of what his witcher means. “So your theory is that I’ve been a ghoul all along?”

“Not exactly.” The book falls close with a soft thud. “Sit, let me explain. It’s...complicated.” 

“Well, alright. We have time.” The librarian gave them until nightfall, and that’s more than a few hours away. Jaskier sits back on his cushioned chair with an encouraging, “Go on, Geralt. I’m all ears.” And he _is_ genuinely interested. This relates to him, directly. He wants to understand as much as possible.

The witcher gestures at the book under Jaskier’s nose. “You know necrophages?”

“That’s the scientific term for ghouls, right?”

“Not just ghouls. Alghouls, drowners, rotfiends, graveirs. I’m sure that encyclopedia you grabbed reads a pretty simplistic definition. Something like, _‘a necrophage is a rotting corpse that refuses to stay dead.’_ Laughably simple,” Geralt’s lip twists into a sneer. “Necrophages are a notoriously difficult group to define. Every human scholar assumes a different approach. Are they self-reanimated? A product of demonic possession? Mutants?” 

Geralt pauses, and it makes the last word hang heavy between them. He continues, “Humans wrote extensively about rumors and myths, cementing false truths in popular belief. It’s good that witcher schools have their own compendiums explaining how ghouls and other necrophages first appeared after the Conjunction of the Spheres, just like vampires.” 

“So they are their own species too,” Jaskier deduces aloud. 

“Yes. You couldn’t be a proper ghoul for the same reason you couldn’t be a vampire. An undead ghoul, however.”

Mentioning the undead puts a severe expression on Geralt’s face. “A corpse that refuses to stay dead,” he echoes his previous words. “Those sorts of ghouls do exist, though witchers would call them undead and never lump them together with necrophages. It’s forgivable that commoners don’t know the distinction. But undead _do_ rise from human corpses, in extremely rare cases.”

The undead. Those star in the most chilling stories Jaskier has ever heard—a man dies in the morning, comes back home after the funeral and eats his family. In war, death does not stop a soldier from continuing the long battle, though they no longer care who is friend and who is foe—but that is all they are supposed to be, stories that happen to other people.

The tales of the undead are often depressing stuff. No one wants to see what becomes of their loved ones after death takes them. It’s just a body, it's easy to say. Jaskier never wants to be in that position. 

And yet Geralt saw _him_ when he died and came back. They’re friends, even if Geralt is taciturn about admitting it out loud. It must have been hard. Had the witcher thought him just a body then? He’s not sure if the answer is worth asking. 

It is good that Geralt keeps talking, not noticing what weighs in Jaskier’s mind. 

“You were human. Died human. Then you came back to life. The natural conclusion to make is that you turned into an undead ghoul, not a vampire. But you don’t show _any_ of the signs. The body of an undead rots gradually. It’s been weeks since you died, your heart still beats, and you keep a regular body temperature after feeding. Except—”

“Except when I’m ‘cold,’” Jaskier cuts in, knowing where the witcher is going now, why he started with necrophages. “And I get hungry when I’m cold.” 

“Your status as undead is unique, but like with ghouls, graveirs and alghouls, mutation begins somewhere.”

Mutation. Geralt would be the expert on the topic, more than the sum knowledge of the scholars that decorate their table. 

The witcher rubs his eyes, elbows propped on the wood. “It might be that you haven’t started rotting _because_ your body metabolizes the blood you consume into bodily function. Maybe...the blood feeding has kept your body warm and alive, and your mind _sane._ In which case...”

In which case, they’ll only know when he stops feeding, but to stop feeding is to begin rotting. So goes the theory. They’re caught in a logical dilemma. 

That is, unless, “Do you want me to bleed out and test it?” 

He means it in jest, a crude black humor he's developing about himself. He hits a nerve instead. Geralt immediately locks up. “Don’t even joke about that.” 

“I’m—I'm sorry, I am. I shouldn’t have said it like that.” He shouldn’t have said it at all, he thinks. Geralt’s anger is a palpable thing. His yellow narrowed eyes form a hard line, difficult to meet head on. “It’s just—I trust you. Whatever you decide to do with me, I do.” 

“You shouldn’t.” The anger in his voice intensifies, but for a different reason. Geralt turns it inwards. “That first night, when you rose from death...I almost killed you. I didn’t yet know what you became, that you could still _think,_ and I almost killed you.” 

There is a well-guarded fear there. Killing monsters is a witcher’s duty in the world. Sometimes, it’s not a monster at the end of Geralt’s blade, but he has to kill anyway. To survive. To protect others. 

Jaskier can’t dismiss his pain with a soft _‘But you didn’t.’_ It would be spitting on the graves of every sentient monster whose life the witcher ended. 

“If you had...I wouldn’t have hated you,” he says instead. ”I trust you. More than I trust myself.” 

He watches as Geralt deflates, his foul mood receding to a gloom. “Jaskier, I don’t know anyone else who would have handled being dead with as much grace as you have.” 

“Ah, but my dear witcher," and at this the bard rises again with humor to lighten their spirits, "You don't really know all that many people _with_ grace, witches and sorcerers aside. I have excellent memory, and I remember how in that disastrous Cintran feast of years past you chatted amicably with all of three people—an unkempt druid mage smelling of dirt and herbs, a _were-hedgehog_ snarling lowly at every swordhand, and a bloodthirsty queen snarling _vocally_ at every swordhand. Alright, maybe the hedgehog was, funnily enough, the most graceful of the bunch—” 

“Yes, yes, I get it.”

“What I mean to say is,” Jaskier smiles broad, “You give yourself little credit. Your judgement has always found the truth at the hearts of people. So, of course I trust you.” 

They’ve reached a point where their books won’t offer any more helpful knowledge, so he calls for the witcher to stack their findings in a wooden cart for the librarian to fuss over later. “I have to ask,” the bard adds after a moment has passed, “Do _you_ trust who Yen is sending us to?”

The long pause that follows makes him glance up from their stack. Geralt, he doesn’t look convinced. “I trust it’s the best she could do.”

Jaskier nods. “Then I trust in her too. This thing I am, we’ll figure it out properly, soon.”

On the way back to the inn, he dismisses Geralt’s theory to the back of his mind where it won't bother him. So there are a number of ways to explain what has happened to him, all of them without absolute certainty. Perhaps the bruxa cursed him in her dying breath, an easy explanation writing off why he’s more bruxa than anything resembling undead. Or if ghouls—of the human-born kind and not necrophages—are indeed a sickness that manifests only in death, his is a mutation of extreme proportions for him to end up basically indistinguishable from a higher vampire. 

Geralt pays for a bath and drops him off with a non-verbal order to wash while he gets a fresh contract for drowners squared away. The nest isn’t far from the city, which demands urgency. It would take an hour, maybe two. 

Jaskier could relax to the scent of chamomile and lavender and pretend everything is fine, like he’s come to do for the last few weeks. Confidence is half the battle, as his musical instructors would say. That they’re somewhere in the academy repeating those very words to a next generation of troubadours is probably ironic. Bet none of them thought it would be used to comfort a dead-living artist adjusting to being dead-living. Probably. Those old bags are always preternaturally aware of a student’s true capacities and limits. 

He doesn’t actually take the bath as much as sit naked in the steaming warmth that swathes him in the closed room. 

The smells are pleasant, the water no doubt wonderful, but he does not have the energy to appreciate it. He’s too busy mulling over how his muscles might be slowly atrophying with the passage of time but seeing as Geralt’s blood keeps him fit, he can’t know for sure.

It is of utmost importance that he drink as much as is necessary to stay ‘alive’, and yet the memory of the woman Bea’s blood makes him grimace. What if by indulging in Geralt’s blood he’s ruined his taste for humans? Geralt is a witcher. Surely something in his mutated body must make him taste so different from a regular human that Jaskier’s tongue is now utterly disgusted by any fresh blood that isn’t his. And what if they are _separated?_ He can’t stomach the thought, literally. 

The idea of being seen and known like this—wallowing, a miserable bloodsucking creature—tightens the stone lobbed in his throat. Not even Geralt should see him like this. It’s a far cry from the proud and merry bard of yestermonth.

Jaskier doesn’t notice at first, but he is no longer alone in the room. He’d been so consumed by his ever-growing fear, sitting stiff for what must have been a long hour, that he’d missed Geralt coming inside. Maybe looking for him.

Seeing the witcher safe and whole at the edge of his vision tempers some of his growing anxiety. No new tears grace Geralt’s armor, though his hair is badly matted with flecks of blood, the white turning brown in the low candlelight.

After a minute passes with Geralt inspecting the bath, Jaskier thinks he should say something about letting the water cool, but Geralt just makes an intricate gesture with his fingers and a low fire licks around the brass side of the bath. It really is a nice bath. Oxenfurt knows how to treat its guests well. 

And then Geralt strips as if completely indifferent to Jaskier’s presence in the room, dipping into the warmed water with a rare sigh. 

He is stunted into absolute silence, his brain an empty well of thoughts. Geralt is just—lathering soap into his hands, not saying a single word. It’s when the minute of frozen stillness ends that Jaskier realizes he’s intruding on the witcher’s privacy, and feels proper shame at not responding quicker.

“Um—”

Geralt moves in an instant, back tense as if—as if _startled._

It is an incredibly puzzling sight. 

“...Jaskier?” The witcher is poised over the lip of the tub, turning his head around to inspect the room. His eyes glaze over Jaskier’s spot, hesitating twice on what he sees, which is obviously Jaskier’s dry, naked skin. At least Jaskier _thinks_ it should be obvious, but for some reason Geralt glares at the wall and not _him._

“You’re—are you sitting on that bench?”

Jaskier blinks. “Yes?”

Without preamble, the witcher rises, sopping wet and dripping all over the wooden floor. 

The hand that extends toward him skips around the air in front of Jaskier’s face. Geralt’s eyes don’t quite land on him. Which is even _stranger._ He’s—right _there._

“Are you alright, Geralt?”

“Do me a favor. Look at yourself.”

Well that’s not fair, Jaskier thinks with a sniff. He knows he must be sweaty, having spent what must have been a great deal of time in the damp room, but, really it’s—

The bench is empty under him. 

“What—” the bench is empty under him, until it isn’t. Like a mirage, his legs ripple into existence, his hands which had been knuckled over his knees following quickly.

He rather feels like he’s just experienced the _reverse_ of vertigo, though just as unpleasant to go through. 

He’d been invisible.

“Alright.” Jaskier runs a warm palm over his face. “This is simply fantastic. Another possibly-disastrous discovery about myself. Thank the gods it didn’t happen in _public.”_

He’s aggravated now, adding spontaneous invisibility to his list of things to be self-conscious about. Geralt’s kneeling in front of him, and that makes his stomach do a weird nauseous skip up his throat that makes him worry is another _vampire-but-not-really_ trait.

“Jaskier, you remember anything different? How you made that happen?”

“I don’t know!” It’s actually a bit unsettling, that he was completely unaware of such a physical change. He feels when his teeth get too sharp and his ears too long, but this? “I don’t know, Geralt. I guess—I didn’t want to be seen. But it didn’t _feel_ any different from just sitting. I don’t understand—”

The witcher puts his hands up to placate him. “It’s fine. We just have to make sure you don’t do that in a crowd.”

“Yes, lovely suggestion,” Jaskier throws his own hands up, a little bit of sarcasm tinging his voice, “I can just hear the rumors that would follow. _The Act of the Disappearing Bard._ Would make running away from angry husbands much easier.”

Geralt shakes his head at him. “Only if you’re naked.”

“Oh, my witcher, but that’s how they usually get mad with me.”

They’re both quite naked themselves, though mud and gore stains the witcher. It’s familiar. Geralt is always getting himself into dirty, grimy messes which Jaskier then has to clean up, sleeves up to his elbows. Now is no different.

Well, it’s a little different.

When Jaskier reaches towards the arch of his neck, the witcher reacts with a slow stare. He hums a question, but doesn’t stop the slightly-clawed hand that curls and settles on his nape.

“Do you need to feed?” 

It’s always if Jaskier needs to feed, always what Geralt’s mind goes to first. 

Touching has become analogous with feeding. 

“Am I not allowed to touch outside of necessity?” Pointed nails tap on the witcher’s skin. He hesitates retracting them back to rounded tips. “I shouldn't impose, you've already done so much for me, more than anyone would be willing to put up with.”

He already wants so much, things he avoids vocalizing in fear of the witcher misunderstanding. 

Because Geralt works himself so hard for Jaskier’s sake, these last few weeks especially, and Jaskier just wants to please him in every way possible. It’s not payment. It’s _want_ —attachment, instinct, animal ferocity. Geralt invokes feelings in him that he cannot rightly name. They overwhelm him.

“Jaskier, I don’t mind,” he says while grabbing the hand over his neck, keeping it pressed there. “I don’t mind your touch.”

“You don't?”

“I shouldn't be—”

Geralt is beginning to slip out from under him. He cannot have that, not when his witcher is right there, _here,_ kneeling, touching, _accepting_ his touch. 

“I have a confession to make,” he captures Geralt’s jaw in both his hands, fast as a whip. It surprises Geralt. Maybe surprises him a little too. “It’s—not easy for me to admit. But I’m selfish. I’m _incredibly_ selfish. It’s not kind to you. So if you really don’t mind, then you should know that much. When you're high-strung after my bite, we don’t need to finish through with sex but I want to give you that pleasure anyways. I like to.”

It’s not a complete confession. Jaskier restrains himself from outing just how much and how readily he wants. Geralt, it seems, finds something funny about it, by the way his lips twist up on one side. 

“What? You don’t believe me?” His hands still cradle the witcher close. He can feel the fast breath that Geralt blows out through his nose.

“I dont mind your touch.” 

“Yes, you said that already.” 

“Whatever you want from me, I don't mind giving to you.” 

Whatever he wants, his witcher says. What an unimaginably dangerous offer. 

His skin vibrates where they touch, pleased at an instinctual level. That is what it is—instinct, he remembers. A greedy instinct that has him imagining all the things he could ask for were he a different man. It could absolutely drive him blood-drunk without having to drink a drop of his blood.

Before it grows out of control, Jaskier leashes the animal down, crushing his sudden frenzy to a reasonable degree of excitement. 

He smooths his hands over Geralt’s neck. His nails remain blunt ovals.

“Well in that case,” he says as if everything is normal between them, “Mind if I join your bath? I didn't actually get to enjoy mine.”

The free city of Novigrad is just a hop from Oxenfurt, half a day's walk under clear skies. Its people are a little more boisterous than Vizima’s—and more than a little rude, but that’s part of the city’s charm, locals say with pride. Jaskier, who is not truly a local but accepted as one, believes the same. 

In Novigrad even _more_ people stop them, recognizing Jaskier from previous summer performances. Quite a few of his admirers are women—past lovers, or prospective ones. They laugh and bat their lovely coal-painted eyes at their master bard, all in vain, unaware that he has long since moved on to become a witcher’s loyal barker.

Then there are friends, rich and beggars alike, who ask about his adventuring, to see if he’s got anything new to sing about. He confesses that he hasn't had the time for it recently, but that they’ll hear something new of his before the year is over. A big promise, but he’s starting to feel it. The nerve for poetry. Up for a round of ballad-singing. 

Geralt is beside him quirking an eyebrow every now and then to the bard’s increasing fervor, but he says nothing of it. He also doesn’t say much when Jaskier introduces him to yet another banker, a brother or cousin to one of the last few people introduced. Jaskier himself doesn’t care, he’s only being polite. His mind is focused on other things. In the need that builds in his chest, violent and exciting, to sing. 

Jaskier can’t let a little fear get in the way of his life’s purpose. He rather thinks that if he were to sing at a tavern now, it would be impossible to turn invisible. His blood screams _watch me, see me,_ and it grows and grows until he’s speaking to bar ladies and their drunken patrons about opening the night at the inn they’re staying in with some song and good cheer. 

Yes, the bard feels it in his bones. He can do it. He _wants_ to do it. Damn the possible consequences, just for today. Novigrad is their last stop before the road that shoots straight through woodland and onto Blaviken, and he will not waste his chance.

Hard hissing startles him. Looking around, Jaskier spots the reason. There’s a cat at the innkeeper’s counter, Rosie according to the establishment’s sweeping hand, and it hisses when he walks by.

Jaskier shushes the little missy with a rising burst of panic in his chest but the cat stops to stare him in the eyes a little too intently. When he looks over his shoulder at Geralt, the man’s moved to a far corner, away from the animal. 

He leaves the cat to follow the witcher to his table, a question on the tip of his tongue.

“Cats don’t like me,” Geralt murmurs with a fresh beer in hand, “And you’re in too good a mood for me to ruin it.”

Jaskies gives him a nod, before looking back at the cat. It’s still staring at him, though it means she isn’t hissing at the witcher. “I’m feeling better than I have these last weeks, that’s true. But it’s only a cat. The hissing won’t bother me. I think she’s stopped, for now.” They sit a moment in silence, a few seconds, Jaskier contemplating the matter of the cat for far longer than necessary. “Do all cats...dislike you?” 

Geralt doesn’t deign to give him an answer. Which is alright. Just a bit sad, he thinks, and he will not have that on this night.

An idea strikes him. Something impulsive and with a degree of danger in discovery. For his witcher, who wordlessly says no cat has ever approached him willingly or kindly, it is totally worth it.

“Hold on. Sit tight a moment.”

He leaves a confused witcher to kneel before the little cat curled atop a stool. As expected, she doesn’t take her wide eyes off of him. Neither does she start a ruckus, so.

“Hello there, little miss Rosie,” he whispers, giving the cat a scratch under her chin, “Would you care to do me a favor and be a calm and quiet girl?”

The cat’s pupils fix on his, expanding for a second before turning into slits again. They are so much like Geralt’s eyes, only lighter in color, and less intense. It almost makes him giggle. Cat’s eyes, witcher’s eyes, both so expressive when their owners probably don’t mean to be.

“Don’t run away now,” he coos, reaching now to pet her head. She instantly starts rumbling at the attention. What a very good girl. Doesn’t bolt out of his arms when he picks her up in a safe, careful grip.

“Here now, Geralt.” They sit together again, this time on the same side of the table instead of opposite ends. “Little Rosie won’t fret any more during our stay, isn’t that right?”

The cat, of course, doesn’t speak. But she also doesn’t hiss when he brings her closer to Geralt’s side. Geralt, on the other hand, tenses up like a brawl is about to break out on top of him.

“Jaskier.”

“It’s alright. She _listens_ to me.” Rosie’s tail thumps against Jaskier’s arm, plainly seeking more attention. “Go on, witcher. When have you ever had the opportunity to pet a cat and for the cat to allow it?”

Geralt watches Rosie warily, his hands still. He lifts one up to hover midair, stopping just before he can touch. It is probably the most hesitant Jaskier has ever seen him, all because of a _cat._ The man truly doesn’t know what to do with one. 

His indecision breaks eventually, perhaps by curiosity. Jaskier offers him a true first experience, one the bard is more than happy to offer. 

As they are both fresh from baths and dressed for eating, Geralt wears no gloves. His fingertips tickle the soft fur between the cat’s ears, testing the waters. The cat does not slash her claws at him. She merely stares, pupils round. 

Jaskier, too, is staring. He’s watching as Geralt’s eyebrows pinch in the middle, the way his fingers flatten and press just a little more along the cat’s spine to feel how she arches not in defense, but in familiarity. 

“See?” Jaskier smiles when Geralt’s eyes meet his. “No trouble at all.” 

Those bright yellow eyes dance away after a second, but their warmth remains even as Geralt grumbles that Jaskier needn’t have bothered. It is incredibly endearing, especially when he tells him he has to let the cat return to its business. “Alright, thank you, Rosie. Off you go now. Back to your owners.”

Even after she darts off to the bar, the mood at their table lifts. Geralt wears something of a content expression, quiet with his thoughts. A heavy feeling grows inside Jaskier’s chest, hot like the sun. He wants to give Geralt more moments like that. Simple joys. Little things that no one appreciates because they’re so commonplace for humans, but Geralt never got to have them being a witcher. 

It’s a crime. Geralt may be convinced he is in need of nothing, but Jaskier will not have it.

The doors swing open and a group of a dozen men barrels straight to the bar. It’s the evening crowd coming in. Jaskier stands with his polished lute in hand and gestures for Geralt to remain where he is, comfortable. 

He will sing.

He will sing to the crowd and they will love him. They don’t always, but this time he _feels_ it in his bones with a clear-minded certainty. They want to hear his cheery ballads, and Jaskier is ever so thrilled to give them a taste of it. 

A short greeting to the people gathered is all he needs to do to earn an excited round of applause. He climbs onto a bench seat.

Strange, that it’s been over a month since he last sang—since that night where he became something _more._ It’s like nothing’s changed. He’s still Jaskier. He still knows how to use his voice. The strings of his lute ring under his skillful playing, the instrument like an extension of himself. Ask a man in the crowd and they might say the bard was born with it attached to his hands. 

He sings of the White Wolf’s tale. It’s what calls to him. And when he finishes the first melody, his breath catches in his throat like he’s winded from running the fields chasing rabbits. 

These people here, they know him. They know his name. They clap to the rhythm of his tapping foot and know the lyrics of his songs. It does not matter that he might be a corpse or a ghoul or a vampire—that is not _him._ He is the bard Jaskier. 

A wide grin breaks out on his face. He finishes the ballad and has never felt more alive. The people of the tavern stare at him with open adoration—

With dreamy adoration in their eyes.

 _Oh._

“That was wonderful, sir bard—" They clammer up to him, "—oh, you are so lovely—sing us another, please—" leaving no space for him to escape, voices and smells overlapping, asking, grasping at him, "—I love you—master bard, master bard—”

_Oh, blast._

“I think it’s time to go,” says Geralt to his left, his arm keeping a few handsy listeners off of them. Their faces are dusted red and strangely blank. As if under a spell. 

“Come on, we’ve overstayed our welcome.”

“‘Overstayed’ or ‘overwhelmed,’ you think?”

The crowd pins them away from the door. They’re not going anywhere unless they start cutting down frantic limbs, which would only aggravate the situation further and possibly turn them into outlaws.

Through the throng of people, Jaskier spots Rosie the cat sitting at the counter, unmoving.

Well, seeing as he started all this. 

“Excuse me—thank you, yes, you’re a wonderful bunch of lads and ladies. But I’m afraid I must take my leave posthaste with my friend here, Geralt of Rivia. We’ve important matters to attend to. Allow him through as well!”

A few people blink, a confused expression flickering up their moony faces. They obey all the same, which is what matters.

“Jaskier—”

“Just follow me,” he whispers to the witcher. “You two, please stand back.” The two boys in question take a measured strut backwards. The front door is now in range and unblocked. “Thank you very much. Be seeing you all at the music festival next year! And don’t forget to tip your maids. They definitely deserve it on this eve.”

Outside the tavern, they swiftly make their way around narrow street corners to the stables where Roach waits for them with an impassive black-eyed stare. 

Finally out of earshot Jaskier laughs, “I can’t believe that happened!”

“Yeah,” Geralt bolts Roach’s saddle on, “Let’s never do that again.”

As they gallop out of the city Jaskier recalls, oddly enough, what Yen had told him through the channel of her mind. _‘Where you go, witchers are no longer welcome.’_

Blaviken and its people will not treat them well. Or so they think. They’re not prepared for something like _him_ to turn the world upside down for his witcher.

He grins to the wind. No one is prepared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S. In the beginning of this fic, I briefly described revived!Jaskier as ‘ghoul’. I used it to mean ‘undead ghoul’ the way Geralt explains here, which is more of a zombie-like definition. Zombies unfortunately(?) don’t exist in The Witcher. 
> 
> In my smaller fics, I generally simplify ghouls to undead creatures, but ghouls in The Witcher are a species of their own. Because this fic is a big who-what-how questploration on how to create a vampire more familiar to us in pop culture, I’m joyfully expanding on ghoul and pseudo-ghoul lore. Have fun guessing what exactly Jaskier is! 
> 
> (The games have some curious unique cases of human-turned monsters, but I decided to take the lore route and give the people in canon who document/think drowners are drowned dead and ghouls unburied dead some credit. They just don’t know some aren’t necrophages! Silly people!)
> 
> P.P.S. I had an absolute cackle reading all the "BLAVIKEN?? _STREGOBOR???"_ comments in last chapter. The next one will be all Blaviken! I would say prepare. For what? Just Prepare.


	5. IV: Compendium, of Pollicitation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was supposed to be bigger, if you can believe it. All 12k+ of it. Or is it 13k+? It depends on the word counter.
> 
>  **Chapter warnings:** Mild-to-moderate gore. Discussion of nonconsensual medical testing and lobotomy (nothing happens, but the threat of it is there).

They flee like guilty robbers. 

A few city guards stop to look at them as they dash out the gates, but even if they were to start chasing them for suspicions, Roach flies at a breakneck pace too quick for anyone to follow. She, too, wants to put Novigrad behind them. She never liked being stuck inside cities.

They finally stop a good ways down the valley, where the grass stretches out like a sea of fluttering green. Geralt spares a second to let his mare snort and pant. 

Jaskier clings to him, giggling the whole time.

“I always love a dashing escape in the cover of night.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt grunts in disapproval.

“Sorry, sorry. Just haven’t had a fun time like that in a while, you know!”

At that, he looks over his shoulder with a disbelieving, “‘Fun’?”

“Yes, fun.” From over his shoulder, the bard flicks his hands theatrically at the waxing moon. “I got to sing and play for a round, and even though it turned into something a little scary, no one got hurt in the end. Ah, except possibly our reputation.”

Geralt huffs. He shouldn’t really be so surprised. It’s Jaskier, the same man who follows a witcher into bogs and caves to get a good descriptive look at the monsters of the world, all so he can write them properly in his fantastical and exaggerated ballads. He always meets danger with a nervous but excited laugh.

He tugs Roach’s reins to lead her out the valley and into the dirt road again. It being night, they ought to pitch a camp down the path, or stop at a roadside inn. Not to save themselves from a bad encounter. The two of them are arguably the most dangerous things in the valley. But travelling the night will tire him for the daytime—and tire his horse too. 

The next inn they pass, he thinks, he’ll pay for a cot. 

After a long quiet pause spent riding the path, Jaskier titters a low, “Are you mad at me?” that makes Geralt feel a little bad.

“No. But that was a close call.”

It was madness, is what it was. Jaskier had sung to a crowd and _enthralled_ it. And then, when the people started to encircle them a little too ravenously, Jaskier had willed them off. 

That’s no small feat. He’s growing into himself, but not with any skill or experience of his own. It’s like brute forcing through the abilities his new body affords him, and it is incredibly stupid. Jaskier didn’t even seem to care all that much for what he’d done, for how easily he could warp people to do as he wanted. He’s known Jaskier for years, so he knows there’s not a chance he would use it with ill intentions. Maybe get out of trouble scot-free. 

But it’s not a good sign as to what he’s becoming. Comfortable and bold.

Geralt steers Roach to the fork in the road that curls northward towards Blaviken. It will take a week, but if he can cut that time down by a day, he will. 

Jaskier is still Jaskier. He is not a corpse or a ghoul or a vampire, but if the bard is coming to terms with not being human either, he might just lose his humanity along the way—and that is what Geralt dreads most.

____

_“I’ve been asked many times what’s the code we witcher’s follow. Are there any monsters we won’t kill? Any non-humans we_ would _kill? Do we intervene in monarchic politics and assassinations, or do we stay on the sidelines, betting on who ends up with the crown?_

 _[faded, unintelligible text]... memorized a good speech old man Crow loved to give drunk at least once in the winter. He’d talk about the difference between control-killing an invasive species and the conservation of endangered creatures. But see, that’s all it was, a good speech, because the truth is there_ is _no code to what a witcher does._

_Our schools train us to similar ends, but there is no unified witcher philosophy. We suffered trials and mutations to be good at one thing: killing monsters. Some of us take the time to learn about the monsters, like how to break curses and save dragons. The Wolves are like that. Most of us don’t care what monster it is, so long as we get coin for putting our swords to good use._

_Sometimes that means killing humans for other humans. And so what? Humans can be pretty monstrous. They made us witchers to clean up their messes, then called us a cast below beggars and right above cowshit, didn’t they?_

_What’s a code? I don’t know. What’s a monster? Whatever pays the bills.”_

_Anonymous,_ Journal of a Witcher of the School of the Cat

____

As they travelled through the cities, Geralt came to terms with letting Jaskier be. He’s not a breakable little bard anymore—never really was—and he needs his freedom back. He needs the crowds and the music halls, the festivals and the excitement that comes with them.

But there’s things, small things, that just don’t fit the same way they used to. Like how he never goes hunting for bedpartners anymore, or how he sits in the corner of a tavern to observe a room first before engaging with its people. 

At every stop on their journey north, Geralt sees it more and more. Jaskier doesn’t wander into crowds anymore. He doesn’t approach musicians and ask them about their background, their education. At the mention of a wedding happening in the countryside, he smiles stiffly and says nothing about passing by on the happy day, no offer to sing at the wedding. At least with Geralt, his smiles are never stiff. His questions sound genuine and not born of pretend interest.

But there’s also a strange focus in his blue eyes when he stares at the witcher too long. Something intense, like watching a tempest roar inside a bottle.

Geralt doesn’t know him as well anymore. That stare, and what hides within it, eludes him.

On their journey north, they ride through a dark forest on a disgruntled Roach, Jaskier at his back humming a song he doesn’t recognize. Maybe something new, in the middle of composition. Geralt lets him be. He’s lost in his own tumultuous thoughts.

So lost, even, that he misses the signs of _arachasae_ prowling the muddy forest. 

He only realizes it when one hisses out of the bushes and strikes at them with saber-like pincers.

Roach startles at the attack and nearly bucks him off, but he manages to stay on by his quick grip on the horn of his saddle.

Jaskier, who had been holding on loosely to him, isn’t so lucky.

He hears a yelp and the thud of the bard hitting the ground. Geralt jumps off in an instant after him, smacking Roach’s side so she gallops away from danger. Arachasae are venomous insect giants, and aggressive group attackers. Where there is one, there is a nest of them.

“Jaskier!” Geralt brandishes his silver sword and swipes it at the one arachas that had struck first, but he hits it at a bad angle. The blade bounces off the insectoid’s thick carapace. The ineffective blow, gratefully, manages to scare the beast back. It gives him room to assess.

Another hiss echoes from the trees. The rest of its swarm is coming.

“Ge-Geralt, ow.”

At his name, he turns to the grounded bard hunched over his own extended legs. “Are you—”

“Just twisted my ankle, I think.” The small grimace he wears says it’s not a terribly painful thing. Geralt still makes sure to flank him from where clicking noises crowd closer.

“Stay back. They’re venomous.”

“I can still—”

He stops the bard with a serious look that begs no rebuttal. “Stay back!”

His shout startles Jaskier into silence, but before an argument can stew between them, a six-legged creature the size of a large dog sprints from the bushes and onto Geralt’s side. The only thing that kept it from stabbing its hooked front legs into him was the solid parry of his silver sword, a move ingrained into muscle memory from years and years of fighting. 

From then on, the witcher doesn’t speak a word, falling into battle-focus. Three of the arachasae come out to circle him, a formation he is quick to dismantle with a signed blast of magic. One of the beasts lands on its back, and Geralt’s silver follows it, landing squarely in its soft underbelly. Its body splits in half with a disgusting crunch.

Dust particles saturate the air as the rest of the arachasae skitter around him. It could be five—or six, they move to and fro so quickly, he just tries to focus on whichever one attacks.

When one tries to swoop past him to Jaskier, he slams the flat of his blade on its side, a place softer than the armor around its face and back. 

Cutting them down proves difficult as razor-sharp pincers jump forward to block his strikes. They move defensively around their kin, protecting from deadly blows. Geralt makes the sign for _Aard_ again. The force of the blast doesn’t knock another on its back again, but it gives him room to breathe and reposition. At the next arachas’ charge, he crouches. The point of his sword meets its open jaws just before it reaches his face, sinking deep into its wet maw and skewering its body. 

He manages to kill one more that way before they learn his tactic and screech bloody murder.

The sound pierces his eardrums and he flinches, scrunching his eyes for just a second. A second is all any monster needs to kill, but his witcher reflexes are faster, honed to perfection. He draws up a sustained magic shield in time before venomous mandibles bite through his armor. 

Nothing throws itself at his shield, though. It remains strong, untouched. When he shakes his head and looks furiously around, he spots Jaskier standing behind him braced against a tree.

An arachas jumps for him. Its thick pincers pierce the meat of Jaskier's thigh. 

The scream that tears from him—Geralt’s vision bathes in red. 

His Quen shield explodes outwards. It stunts the nearest arachas waiting on him to weaken. In his rage, he throws himself at the beast, hacking its legs off. It’s a risky gamble, moving so close within reach of its pincers, but he’s not playing safe anymore. He’s going to destroy them, burn their nest to ashes, burn their soft innards till they’re nothing but toasted shells. 

Jaskier’s scream quiets, and the forge-hot fire that burst in Geralt’s chest freezes. He turns to the bard and the vile creature to see it pull its pincers free.

Geralt doesn’t think, he just leaps on its carapace back and stabs his blade into the section that joins head and abdomen. 

It shrieks, trying to shake him off unsuccessfully. His knuckles strain with keeping his grip, but he remains, unyielding, until the beast’s strength begins to wane. 

When it finally slumps down, Geralt pulls out and off its back. Black blood sprays out of the cut. It spurts everywhere, on him, the ground. His sword is filthy with it.

“Jaskier,” Geralt calls, kneeling beside the bard. 

Jaskier doesn’t react. He sags against the gnarled roots of a dark tree, staring blankly at his thrashed thigh. Red coats the ground. Too much of it. The arachas must have sliced an artery. 

His witcher’s hearing can’t pick up his heartbeat.

“Jaskier.” He tears the ruined cloth of Jaskier’s pants and ties a strip of it tightly above the wound. It looks bad. Worse than he’d first thought. More blood pools from the back of the leg—the pincer went straight through. 

At the pressure, Jaskier grunts something low and pained, and Geralt almost sprains his neck from the whiplash of looking up from the wound.

He meets red-tinged irises and pupils wide like a corpse’s.

Geralt can’t tear the armor fastenings on his shoulders fast enough. “Drink,” he urges, pushing Jaskier’s mouth into the exposed bit of skin. _“Drink,_ please.”

Jaskier gurgles something—he can’t tell if it’s words, or distress, or pain—just before elongated cuspids break the skin of his shoulder.

His bite is not pleasant. It’s reminiscent of their first time, when Jaskier had woken from death and stumbled to the witcher’s side. He sinks his teeth deep, sucking hard. And like that first time, he stops sooner than expected.

The teeth retract. “I’m...sorry,” the bard says next to his ear. Slowly, he draws back to rest against the tree. His face is fixed in an agonized expression. “Head hurts, need a—second.”

He looks awful, skin sickly white with dark veins standing out, but more lively with each passing second. Geralt checks him over, and in pressing his thumb to a pale wrist—a sluggish pulse, not good, but not _dead_ —his hands shake as if weak in strength. Jaskier must have drank more than he’d noticed. It hadn’t _felt_ like much. 

Geralt’s shoulder aches, but it’s an ache he is glad for. “I thought I lost you there.”

That seems to wake Jaskier some. He sits straighter. “You might have. Everything’s fuzzy. Feel uncomfortable.” He curls his free hand where Geralt’s is tucked around his wrist. “I guess—you were right. Blood loss is definitely bad for me.”

The smile he gives wobbles. Geralt understands he’s trying to lighten the tension in the air. It doesn’t quite work, but hearing him try settles some of the witcher’s nerves. That’s Jaskier. 

They sit there in the blood-stained grass, pieces of arachasae twitching in a scattered heap. For long minutes, it’s quiet, just the forest rustling with the wind. 

Jaskier’s breathing calms. His eyes look clearer. The red in them fades to a familiar web of blue.

The horrible wound of his thigh closes into unblemished skin. 

That ends the moment. They’ve spared the necessary time to rest. The danger is over with, Geralt surmises, so he stands and whistles for Roach to return. Before they leave, he aims to fulfill his private promise to destroy every sign of arachasae in the premises. 

Jaskier sees him get up and get to work, but he doesn’t move to follow. His hesitant smile takes on a bitter edge. 

The witcher stops as his mare rounds the clearing of dead insectoids. “Come on. What is it?”

“Isn’t it strange?” he says, staring at his feet. “Just a few minutes ago, I was dying. No, I was _dead,_ and now I’m fine. Just look at this.” 

Jaskier wipes blood off his thigh, right where the grievous pincer attack sliced through. “It’s like nothing ever happened. Like a bad dream. The strangest part is, I don’t really feel any different, but I think I _should._ Right?”

“Jaskier,” Geralt tries, but cannot find any words of comfort. What does he say to that? He doesn’t know what should be normal to feel when you die. Jaskier has gone through it twice, this time fully aware of himself and capable of remembering after, not like with the bruxa. Watching the light slip from his eyes is not the same. It’s a horror in itself, and it opens a terrifying hole inside Geralt’s chest that threatens to swallow him whole. 

But death—he only knows how to bring it. 

Silently, the witcher shakes his head. Roach stands behind him, bumping her snout into his bleeding shoulder. She snorts, momentarily distressed, but his nonchalance tells her it's nothing to worry about, so she stops fretting, choosing instead to nip at his sleeve.

Jaskier stands then. He comes over beside the mare to pet her flank.

Geralt recognizes her brief startle. She looks at the undead vampire with wide, wary eyes, but allows it, as her witcher has allowed it. 

It only makes Jaskier’s smile sad. “See, I’ve changed, Geralt. She knows. I’m not the same. I’ll never be the same again.” 

“We don’t know if that’s true yet, the mage—"

But Jaskier isn’t listening to him. He just sighs, and Geralt wants to tell him _no, we can fix this._ They can still mend _some_ thing in him. His abilities may yet be controlled, dampened to near-humanness. Maybe his humanity is lost forever, but he can avoid the pain and dissonance of death, keep his mind from spiralling in shock.

“Promise me one thing, please,” Jaskier says to him with a pleading tone. “If I lose my mind...make sure I never pose a threat to anyone. If you have to kill me, do it. Don’t let me become a monster. I don't know how I could live with myself.” 

He swallows the knot in his throat. ‘ _If you have to kill me.’_

“I promise.”

“Thank you.” His expression clears. At the state of his clothes, however, he adds a sorrowful, “By the gods, how many outfits am I going to ruin?”

____

_“Alchemic concoctions and potions must be mixed exactly. Anything a hair out of place could create a sludge of organic and alchemic matter that at best smells like a carcass left five days in the sun, and at worst, dispenses poisonous fumes._

_An alchemist’s worst nightmare is a Witcher’s decoction. Beg you never have to make one. They have extremely precise recipes full of the rarest of ingredients, all which do not make any sense as to how they produce their uniquely augmentative properties, and in the end utterly useless and deadly to anyone who is not a Witcher. We infer that the reason why is because of Witcher mutations: that which sets them apart from Humans and Elder Races._

_It is unknown to anyone who is not a Witcher themself what begins the process of mutation from Human to Witcher. Its results, however, are widely known in the magical community for allowing the consumption and adherence of ‘mutagens’: one of the key ingredients in Witcher decoctions. What these ‘mutagens’ are, exactly, is up for debate, but considering we Mages extract them from the monsters Witchers kill and cut apart to sell, parts which we later buy to brew our own unique potions, we can only assume monsters and Witchers are indeed related to a genetic extent, by forced mutation.”_

_Brotherhood of Sorcerers,_ A Mage’s First Handbook: Chapter on Alchemy

____

Blaviken is unlike any other city or town they’ve visited in their long journey. For one, it’s quiet in the streets. There’s no children running around, not any that don’t get scolded and hidden away when they see him and Jaskier coming by. The women speak to each other in hushed whispers. Some people see the two swords on his back and spit on the ground when they pass, which isn’t all that unusual compared to all the times someone’s come up to Geralt with aggression in their stance. But here it’s...it happens enough times that he starts to feel uneasy. Like he’s a minute away from someone actually saying something, or worse, throwing a punch at his face.

It’s been years— _decades_ since he was last in Blaviken. But not long enough for its people to forget him. Geralt makes sure his hood covers his hair. 

Jaskier follows him, though he moves with more sureness in himself. 

It’s been a couple of days since the arachasae, and he’s looking better for it. Even in Geralt’s spare clothes—none of which fits him adequately, but are far better than bloody rags—he looks and moves like his old self, waving off the townsfolk’s disdain with familiar confidential words. “Oh, they’ll change their minds once I have a chance to speak with them.”

 _Yeah,_ Geralt thinks, _in a more literal sense than ever._

He doesn’t say anything out loud, preferring to leave it at a hum. 

At the town’s inn, he makes sure to grab Jaskier by the elbow and keep him close. It’s packed for the midday hour, which might work to their advantage. No one would blink at two more travellers searching for lodgings. 

His initial assessment turns out to be wrong.

“Oi you,” a disgruntled barman shouts over from their left, “Newcomers. Take off the hood. We’s indoors.”

He gives a curt, “Rather not.” 

The man crosses his arms from behind the bar. “No hood or no service.”

A few people peer at him curiously from across their tankards. He doesn’t want to make a scene—he _really_ doesn’t—but they’re not giving him much of a choice. 

He blows a sigh through his nose and lowers his hood. It's what they asked for.

A few people, older folk mostly, shoot out of their chairs, their hackles raised. 

“Witcher.”

“Not just any witcher either,” one mutters, knocking a drink over. “Tha’s the Butcher.”

A deafening silence falls in the room. Then, like bees, a low murmur starts in the room. He hears it clear through the room with his incredibly sharp hearing. 

They whisper, _‘Butcher, the Butcher,’_ hands cupped in front of their mouths. Some with trepidation, some with hatred.

Geralt grits his teeth. A couple moves to block the door. He sees it for what it is, people taking matters into their own hands. 

Before he can tense for a fight, Jaskier flanks him, arms raised high in a placating manner.

“Good sir, you’ve got it all wrong. This man here is no butcher.” The smile Jaskier wears would disarm the most obstinate of ladies. Geralt is taken aback by it. In moments like these, the bard would turn into a nervous, tittering mess, calling on the witcher to please refrain from escalating the situation.

Now, he commands the room’s attention, no tremble of fear in his voice. 

“He’s the White Wolf,” he goes on to say in Geralt’s defense, “A witcher, yes, but a famous one across the Continent for his many heroic deeds. No man or monster dies cruelly by his blade.”

The murmur grows louder, but with more hesitant and questioning whispers. Tales of the White Wolf are known even Blaviken. 

But the man at the bar is not swayed. “Butcher and Wolf are the same, bard.”

“Not so.” A few people seated around the bar exchange angry, confused looks, but no one yet silences the bard. “Would the Butcher come back to the town he was banished from? A witcher knows not to walk where he is not welcome.”

The argument itself wouldn’t be able to change anyone’s opinion. Certainly, the people of Blaviken know that the White Wolf and the Butcher are the same person, if Jaskier’s tales are truly Continental in fame. The elder folk of the town would _recognize_ him, for fuck’s sake. It’s been years, decades, but frightful memories don’t just fade into darkness. In fact, someone ought to have thrown a punch or broken a table leg to beat him with already, and yet—

There’s a resonance in the air. The hairs on the back of his neck stand, but beyond that, Geralt isn’t affected by it. 

The humans in the room don’t recognize it for what it is. A subtle thrall. The planting of a suggestion. It says _‘the Butcher isn’t here.’_ Jaskier tosses the words out to the room.

And the people believe him.

Angry, fearful stares blink into neutrality. The pair standing at the tavern’s entrance look at each other sheepishly and return to their seats. 

The man at the bar is still displeased, but it’s no longer related to any butchers or wolves. “We don’t need no witcher anyway,” he says gravely. “We got a mage, and he handles the monsters here just fine.”

 _A mage._ The crinkled piece of parchment with Yennefer's handwriting burns a hole in his pocket. He knows what name to ask for. 

Geralt turns to question him, but Jaskier beats him to it with an excited, “What a coincidence! We’re looking for a mage as well, not for any contracts on monsters. So you’ve nothing to worry about. We won’t ask for your coin, but pay like good lawful citizens for food and a room in this here wonderful establishment. That’s no problem at all, no?”

Geralt sees the moment the man finally gives in. “No...no problem,” he says with a distracted nod, eyelids fluttering.

When the barman looks to the witcher, there’s just a disinterested sort of expression in his eyes. Like he was never cross with him. 

“So, you lookin’ fer a room, Wolf?” The man looks down at the counter, checking availability. “We only got one left.”

After a second’s pause, needing to adjust to the man’s new carefree tone, Geralt gives him an affirming hum. “One’ll do fine.”

Paying for a room has never been so straightforward. Even in the capitals, he’s had to haggle for a fair price. Offer work for a motheaten cot to sleep in. Put his witcher’s name to use culling stray bands of nekkers and drowners in the area, at a discount. It’s irritating, but not so bad that he would refuse outright. A little bit of a reward is still a better reward than nothing.

But that downstairs, “Jaskier, that was...”

That was unnecessary, he almost says, but if the bard hadn’t intervened, they would have had a terrible, bloody fight, and the town’s alderman would have not stopped at banishment this time, for causing a second massacre defending his skin. Geralt of Rivia would have been tied up and sent to the gallows, and Blaviken’s people would have cheered.

Jaskier saved them the trial. Even so, Geralt doesn’t like it. The bard shouldn’t have _needed_ to intervene. If it weren’t for his negligence in Rivia and that damned bruxa, Geralt wouldn’t even _be_ in Blaviken to get nearly mobbed. 

He falls silent as Jaskier sits on the single bed, looking proper shamed. “I’m not hurting them by telling them to leave us alone, right?” 

He isn’t. Geralt grumbles in agreement. 

It puts a small smile on the bard’s face. “Then it’s alright. Makes our venturing easy. Don’t worry so much?”

Geralt still doesn’t like it, but he can admit the ease with which they got a bed is one weight lifted off his shoulders. 

And Jaskier does apologize for being a smidge reckless, pulling attention to himself to better sway the crowd with his enthralling voice.

“Should we try asking for the mage next time we go down?” 

“No.” Geralt takes a seat beside Jaskier, who turns to face him with those bright, intense eyes. Meeting them is difficult, so the witcher stays his gaze downward, speaking to his hands. “There’s only one sorcerer’s tower in town. I know where it is.”

“You want to go now?” 

“Not yet, I just...” 

Beneath their feet, someone starts howling a song to their unrequited love. They’re off-key, which plenty of people get vocal about, shouting at the heartbroken fool to shut up or they’ll get tossed. He feels the floorboards vibrate as someone runs down the hall, giggling. It is a child. Heavier steps follow the laughter, and a man’s voice rumbles _‘Jenny, don’t run’_ through the walls.

People _laugh_ here. They gather together to gossip on top of the bloodied dirt, long ago washed off, of the market street.

Jaskier shuffles nearer. “It’s hard being here.” 

Geralt swallows the lump in his throat. He can’t look Jaskier in the eyes, but especially not for this. Because he _is_ the Butcher, no matter how well the undead bard persuades Blaviken’s folk to believe otherwise. 

“When I was last in this town,” he starts, yellow eyes briefly closed, remembering. “There was an old sorcerer. He was interested in ‘unusual people’, princesses born under a cursed sun. One princess...evaded him. She was the last of an evil prophesy, and the sorcerer tormented her because of it. She wanted him dead. I got in the middle of it.” 

It’s a gross simplification. There’s more to it than that, more nuance. But the ending is the same. 

“The princess died.”

Renfri died, because Geralt killed her. She was a mutant, an anomaly of nature not unlike Jaskier is now, though the two of them are far from comparable. She was born a mutant. He was _re_ born one. She had been forced to walk the path of a monster—he fell onto such a path and struggles not to become one.

They are not the same, and yet he fears their fates will nonetheless _be_ the same. Dead, killed by Geralt's own hand to prevent a greater evil.

One of Jaskier’s hands falls over his fists. They’re clenched so tightly now. He hadn’t really noticed when he’d started doing that. 

“I’m sorry,” the bard tells him.

“It was a long time ago.”

“I’m still sorry.” Jaskier’s voice never wavers. Geralt raises his face to him. 

Nothing has changed. Renfri is still dead. Stregobor went out into the world, and somewhere, he gets to live the happy guise of a wise old wizard, guiltless to the deaths of dozens of mutant girls, all because a prophesy justified it. 

But he’s never confided the memory with someone else. Since it happened, Geralt has lived with not knowing if what he did was right. If intervening wasn’t what got Renfri killed in the end—or if she would have lived, another greater horror would truly be released onto the world. 

He doesn’t know, and he never will. 

Hearing Jaskier’s honest lament, it loosens the vice around his heart. 

The hand that squeezes his own is warm. “It’ll be fine, right?” Jaskier murmurs.

He has to be optimistic. Believe the words. _It'll be fine._ “Yeah.”

Jaskier laces his fingers over the back of the witcher's hand. It's a strange and intimate touch. “If this mage fixes me...what will happen to us?”

“You won’t need to drink my blood," Geralt answers, logically. “You could eat anything you want. You can go anywhere you want.”

It's what he wants to give the bard back most. Freedom. Purpose.

Jaskier just smiles brighter. “You know I would rather travel a swamp with you than see the most beautiful city in the world by myself. What would be the point without your company there to criticize the blacksmith’s less than spectacular work?”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why would you prefer my company.”

Strange blue eyes glitter at him. “Because you’re my witcher, silly wolf.”

____

_“If a witcher drinks too many potions in short order, the toxic levels in his bloodstream increase to the point where the blood itself becomes poison for the body. This can kill the witcher if symptoms go unattended. A shot of Golden Oriole will neutralize the effects of ingested poisons, but will not cure the body’s concurrent toxicity. To do this, drink White Honey, which purifies the body of toxins._

_Important: White Honey will not alleviate the effects of common poisons and venoms. It specifically targets toxicity caused by witcher potions. Don’t mix your potions like an idiot.”_

_Anonymous,_ The Path and its Trials 

( _Addendum on page 145 by Witcher Vesemir._ )

____

The sorcerer’s tower casts a shadow over the market street and all the streets adjacent to it. It easily dwarfs the tallest of the town’s buildings, and stretches wider than a barnhouse. 

Irion’s tower, as they call it in Blaviken, is just as Geralt remembers it. Formidable, oppressing. The foggy air that clings to its stone facade never dissipates, even at the midday hour. 

Jaskier shifts from foot to foot, glancing from the gated wooden doors to the witcher’s stern face and back. “So, we just knock?”

“No.” Geralt takes a step forward, taking up the center of the entrance. “I knock.” 

The twin knockers hanging from the tower’s gate are new. A door with a knocker welcomes visitors, and means a good host, which is sure to hearten the townspeople and bolster their confidence in requesting aid from the resident mage. Stregobor kept a knocker, but it was an illusion. It wasn’t real, and anyone who tried to use it would either slip through into the tower, if allowed, or receive an unpleasant shock.

Geralt grabs one of the knockers by its iron ring and slams it against the door’s plate twice. It reverberates like a noon bell.

The gate opens backwards after a second. 

“Hm, ominous,” Jaskier chimes behind him, “You trust a self-operating magic door to let us in?”

They come upon an empty courtyard at the tower’s middle, barren of any life and lit on all sides by torches. Only a slow-trickling fountain decorates the interior, which in Geralt’s opinion is somehow more comforting than a luscious garden tended to by false visions of nude men and women that once decorated Stregobor’s residence. 

He turns to Jaskier, spotting his wandering gaze. “If the people here have been going to this sorcerer for monster contracts, then it’s not that ominous.”

“Still, not even an echo-y greeting from deep within the bowels of the tower? I expected dramatics.”

_“I can return up the stairs and ask your names, if you really want the clichéd experience.”_

A circular flight of stairs winds inside the wide walls of the tower, and through triangular windows, the silhouette of a man descends to ground level. Geralt tracks the shadow, moving in front of Jaskier again as the mage reaches the tall-ceilinged entryway on the other side of the courtyard.

In the light, he sees the sorcerer sports short cropped blond hair and a youthful face. He is obviously not the age he presumes to look like. Mages rarely are. 

“Theramas,” the sorcerer introduces himself, gesturing with long, heavy sleeves that cover down to his palms. 

The sleeves are wet with a dark, stinking liquid that makes Geralt— _and_ Jaskier, by the chuff he makes—wince. “We come at a bad time?”

Theramas waves over the stained fabric and the smell greatly diminishes. “Oh, no no. I was cleaning up old potion distillers, nothing vital. Forgive the smell. The residue stinks horribly after it dries.”

Geralt nods. He understands, having committed amateur mistakes before in brewing his own witcher potions. The smell can get to be so atrocious, and removing it is worse.

The mage clasps his hands together, the rich cobalt blue of his robe rippling to green in the torchlight. “Please, come aside.” 

He takes them to a warm corner of the courtyard, the walls decorated by long, floral tapestries. Water spouts from the wall into a basin. There’s no drain, so it seems there is _some_ magic being employed in the tower’s interior, but it is practical in its use. 

“To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit, Geralt of Rivia?”

Geralt crosses his arms. “So you know who I am.”

The mage’s head is turned to the water spout, where he begins washing out the dark matter soaked into his sleeves. “Everyone in the Continent knows the white-haired witcher, especially those of us who live in and around Blaviken. It is quite the surprise to meet you, actually. Surely no one has extended the welcome mat. Though,” he adds, turning his cheek to peer behind the witcher, “I see something has allowed for a change in opinion to occur.”

Geralt stays firmly where he is, but that doesn’t deter his travelling partner from leaning out of the witcher’s shadow to wiggle his fingers in greeting. “Yes, um, hello. That would be me, Jaskier. His, uh, barker.”

“The troubadour of Oxenfurt fame.” The sorcerer’s tone takes on a bright lilt. Too bright. His eyes narrow with a critical sheen, making deductions. “Well, if someone were to provoke that change in the good people’s hearts it certainly would be yourself.”

Jaskier positively glows at the praise. “Thank you. I’ve been doing it for years.”

“So I’ve heard from the numerous tales that exist of the White Wolf. But Blaviken is different in all respects. I’ve heard of a few travelling bards gracing our taverns with songs you’ve written. It has never been received well. But never mind that.” In a moment’s pause, the sorcerer flicks his hands and a thread of blue magic curls around his wrists, drying the cloth and his hands instantly. The smell has all but dissipated. The robe will still have to be discarded, if the alchemic smudge has damaged the cloth. But for now, it looks satisfactory.

“You came to me for a reason, witcher, and I doubt it involves a consultation over the local kikimora population.”

Before the bard can cut in with explanations, Geralt raises a hand to stop him. “I knew a sorcerer here once.”

“Yes, I am aware you crossed paths with master Stregobor.”

At the title of _master_ Geralt scowls. Theramas notices, threading his fingers together at the front in a harmless way. “You have history with him?”

“I was taught in the magic academy at Ban Ard where he was rector for many years. He oversaw some courses himself, which I attended. He is also positively ancient. There is not a sorcerer in the Continent who would not call him ‘master’ except, perhaps, the sorceresses taught in Aretuza.” 

All this Theremas says in a matter-of-fact way—but that’s what wizards do, speak calmly and wisely about infuriating things, and it does not conciliate the witcher with the mage any quicker. 

“Wizards treat _Stregobor_ with respect?” Geralt squares his shoulders even higher. “You see why I might not trust you with details.”

“Oh, I understand well. I do not mean that every sorcerer bends their knee at his word. His methods in mutant research were,” the mage cringes then, “Extreme, to put it kindly, and plenty of our school did not agree with his prophetic arguments. Reason should not be superseded for presumptions. I am of a different mindset that to understand the unknown, one must be willing to give a little of oneself, be it time, effort, or sympathy. I have heard you witchers believe in the same practice.”

“Not all of us.” 

“But _you_ believe it,” Theramas adds with a lift of his pointer finger. “You are, after all, helping your mutant friend by bringing him where no one would extend a hand to you. No one save an impartial servant of magic, who may aid in...well, I don’t know yet. I can sense you are no longer just an ordinary human, Jaskier, but the specifics, I cannot discern them.” 

The mage’s shining eyes meet the witcher’s, inquiring with his gaze what sort of puzzle it is that they’ve brought him. Geralt doesn’t like it. He must notice that too, because the mage is quick to placate his growing worry. 

“You do not need to tell me everything, as long as what you choose to tell me is the truth.”

He has a mind for knowledge. Yennefer said he’s versed in monster study. Rehabilitation. Well, he may be a nosy wizard—they all are—but this one, at least, seems genuine in his scholarly interest.

Blaviken would not betray him twice, would it?

Geralt’s stance loosens to something less defensive. “Alright,” he acquiesces.

“Good. So, what is the problem?”

Geralt briefly explains Jaskier’s new biology and abilities without too much clumsiness. There’s things he’s not sure of, and it’s not like he actually _knows_ the depth of the bard’s profound transformation. Only that it approximates—or assimilates, whatever _it_ is that Jaskier became—characteristics commonly attributed to the higher vampire species.

The mage takes them across the bottom floor of the tower as he speaks, going into another corner of the courtyard with a fixed podium and an open book. He fills a page with notes, remarking on certain things for verification. 

“What does his diet consist of?”

At this point, Jaskier cuts in with an annoyed, “You can ask me, you know,” and he sounds quite tired with being lugged around the room—not ignored, exactly, because Geralt has been keeping track of him, but certainly unaddressed, even as the subject of inquiry. 

Geralt answers for him anyway. “He only drinks from me.” 

“Really?” Theramas turns to the bard with a surprised raise of his pale blond eyebrows. “And you have not experienced any negative side effects?”

Geralt pauses mid-step at that. “What do you mean?”

The mage scribbles on his book. He doesn’t elaborate more, continuing his original line of thought, this time with Jaskier. “Behavior?”

Jaskieir shrugs. “I’m alright. I feel like myself. Most times. Less around, uh, humans.”

“That is not so strange. Humans are naturally social creatures, but they organize in predictable cliques. Outsiders are often ostracized within a community, so anyone who fits the model of an outsider needs to adapt. Vampires have mastered the art of blending into human populations near seamlessly, but you _aren’t_ a vampire, am I to understand?”

“No. I, well, I died. As a human.” Being under the mage’s scrutinous note taking puts the bard in an awkward position. Geralt imagines he would rather go back to being unattended to. “I’m something else now, by coincidence _like_ a vampire?”

“I am to assume something occurred to greatly change your physiology then, with all your vampiresque traits. I’ve encountered two undead before, though they were well into the decomposition stage, unfortunately. There was hardly anything human left in them. I couldn’t do anything for them then, but _you_ are still a talking, rationing, sentient being.” The mage goes on to pick up his book of notes and wave his hand at the ceiling above their heads.

“Would you be willing to submit to minor testing?” 

Geralt bristles, stepping up to the mage and pulling back Jaskier in a single move. “He—”

“I promise the good gentleman it will be quick and noninvasive,” Theramas calmly interjects. A crystal flask drifts down from high above, from where he was waving, and it settles in the mage’s extended hand. “I am wholly interested in understanding his special circumstances and subduing the more instinctual impulses that may occur, perhaps even undoing them. Turning invisible in the middle of a crowd would quickly lead to panic and ill-thought out responses. If I can analyze why it happens...”

He trails off for a second, inspecting the flask to make sure it is one of his clean ones. “I will need a sample of your blood. May I draw some from you, Jaskier? I only need enough to fill about half of the flask.”

Jaskier hums. It’s a small flask. He nods. 

From his sleeve, Theramas extracts a long needle. Geralt grimaces, his back tensing up again. His experience with those things has never been noninvasive _or_ quick. 

But the mage is true to his word. Besides the initial squawk of the needle pushing into his arm, Jaskier doesn’t blanch or show any indication of pain. And in less than a minute’s time, the flask is full to the middle line.

“There,” he announces, plugging the flask. “I should return no later than afternoon tea, hopefully. You may wait around the courtyard, but please do not venture above the ground floor. I keep a meticulous order per floor, and I also need silence to work quickly.”

“Ugh, sure,” Jaskier grumbles. Now that his duty’s done for the moment, and all that’s left is to wait, Jaskier sags onto one of the stone benches that surrounds the barren courtyard. “Feels like I’ve just seen the plague doctor.”

Theramas gives the vial a good shake. “Bloodletting is not so different a procedure, I imagine. I’ve never actually spoken with a doctor to confirm it.”

There’s a bow shared between them all—Geralt’s more a nod than a bow. 

Just before the mage goes up to his tower, the witcher stops him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Why Blaviken?”

Theramas turns to him. “Why come here, you mean? At first, for work. People in these parts started hiring wizards for monster problems, after an unfortunate incident where a witcher left them distrustful of hiring them again.” 

He doesn’t say it meanly, but Geralt still pulls an unpleasant face, knowing his actions led to other witchers suffering in their own contracts, and subsequently burdening mages with hunts. “Be that as it may,” Theramas adds, plucking the witcher’s attention, “I happened to take one such responsibility some years ago, and...decided to stay. After master Stregobor left the town, there was no wizard or witch to resolve magic matters. So I assumed the vacant position, spent some time studying the local beast population, and then expanded _beyond_ locality. I endeavoured to—well, if you heard of me then you’ve heard I have a bit of a reputation in... _taming,_ the humans call it.”

“What does ‘taming’ mean?”

“Rehabilitation, in most cases. Many monsters are sentient and misunderstood, as you well know. Some of them have simply lost their better judgement to isolation and stress. Dopplers, I’ve learned, are more responsive to positive treatment than alps or bruxae, who need an established dominant force in their life, a sort of _master,_ to limit their overindulgence in blood feeding.”

Positive treatment, dominant force. Geralt does not know much about those things. He knows how to cure a curse, if given details. He knows to talk to silvans, dopplers, even vampires, about what troubles them into acting out, and that to solve that problem for them usually appeases them, stops them from targeting humans in the future. He’s not a scholar in the sense that he knows the studied methods and the processes by which a victim of excommunication can be rehabilitated. He just listens. 

So he hums, concurring with the wizard’s knowledge. Because Theramas sounds like he has the right experience, and carries good intentions.

“I will bring answers, witcher. Blood reveals all.”

____

_“Toxicity—_

_A witcher first becomes able to resist high levels of toxicity after the Trial of the Grasses. The body is put under stress by alchemic formulae known only to the witcher’s school mages and the eldest of the witchers. The intent of these formulae is to mold the body’s physiology from the inside out. An aftereffect of those who survive the Trial is resistance to poisons and venoms, coupled with tolerance to the deadly effects of such poisons and venoms. This is how witchers can ingest the highly toxic decoctions made for dangerous hunts. They resist, and they tolerate. The blood is no longer human.”_

_Anonymous,_ The Path and its Trials

____

“He is not human.”

The moment Theramas returns, Geralt shoots up from the light meditation he fell into, waiting with a tittering Jaskier. 

He’d been listening to the bard comment on the sparse decor for the better part of an hour. The wait with no distraction put Jaskier in an even more restless mood, and Geralt, to counter it, sat on his knees and became an immovable, mute object. Something for Jaskier to focus on and not fret over. At some point, he went from decor to curiosities, and from curiosities to the stark magic that vibrates out from inside the tower’s stones, like the spout and the fountain. Geralt doesn’t say it, but it’s not just in the stones. There’s more, but it’s subtle, too subtle for Jaskier to pick up. 

It alludes to the mage’s own careful control over Chaos and how well he has integrated Irion’s tower to be his own, even after Stregobor.

The mage descending the stairs rouses him, but what he says is no more a reveal than calling _Geralt_ a mutant. “We know.”

“Forgive me,” Theramas breathes, once at ground level, “I phrased it inelegantly. I mean to say there is nothing physiologically human about him.”

 _Well if he’s not human, of course there wouldn’t be,_ the witcher thinks, but stops himself from saying it out loud. There is something he is not quite understanding. 

“Nothing...?”

Confusion takes root, trying to piece together what Theramas excitedly tells him. “It’s incredible, actually. A one in a million chance for a human to turn undead, and a one in _that_ million chance for a mutation to take place and alter the body so completely, so totally, that the blood no longer presents human trace origins. I’ve never seen or heard anything like it happening before, outside of humans who were already born with mutations.”

Slowly, as the mage presents them with the murky contents of the flask—the same flask Jaskier had half-filled with his blood, now separated into three parts of an oil-like surface, a black inky middle and, and _something purple,_ slightly clear. That is _definitely_ not anything he’s seen come out of a human. Not even knowing what makes up human blood. 

He doesn’t understand. Jaskier stands beside him, looking into the flask with a disgusted, and alarmed, expression. “What...what can you do?” Geralt asks.

“I have no idea. Not yet.” The vial is tucked back into an inner pocket of the shimmering blue robe. “Physiologically, I do not think this can be reversed, and I would not advise it. But these abilities you’ve indicated that replicate a bruxa’s can still be studied, even suppressed. I know how to.” 

_Suppressed._ Geralt scratches his forehead. That’s better than nothing. It would give Jaskier his freedom back. The bard would not need to worry about freak accidents. No enthralled taverns or trailing wargs. He could just _be._

Jaskier might not be human anymore, but he could become so indistinguishable from one that it wouldn’t matter. 

The mage’s next words bite at his anxious thoughts. 

“The gentleman must stay for this.”

“Stay?” he repeats, looking at the tower’s high walls, more a prison than a protective structure.

Theramas senses his doubt. “I say it for his safety, witcher. In here, no one will interrupt us and see something they shouldn’t. Give me time alone with the troubadour. We will figure something together.”

The tower is a safe, isolated place, he means. Geralt understands that, but he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like that it is the same space where Stregobor once tried to convince him to kill a mutant girl because it was the lesser evil. He _hates_ it, and he hates the thought of leaving Jaskier behind.

“Geralt,” Jaskier calls.

Geralt turns to look at him. He wears a smile twisted up higher on one end. A canid tooth pokes out through his lips.

After months, it no longer looks so strange on his mouth.

“It's alright. If it's safe." He looks up at the witcher's worried brow. "I’ll be seeing you?”

He swallows back a forming knot. “Yeah, of course.” He wouldn’t let this be how they part ways. “I’ll be right here in town. Come back tomorrow.” Geralt nods. Tomorrow, at first light. But not so early that he comes off smothering Jaskier like a mother hen. He can take care of himself, and he won't be alone.

Jaskier nods too, but as if to himself. 

After short farewells, Theramas indicates for the bard to climb the stairs, waiting a second longer to tell Geralt that once he departs, he will close the gate so that no town dweller will barge in unannounced. It comforts him, but only a little. They offer their own parting words and Geralt heads out the gate.

Outside, the fog still lingers low in the air. No one stares at the witcher emerging from Irion’s tower. A boy waddles by, not showing a smidgen of curiosity for the funny-eyed stranger emerging from the wizard’s home. 

Before the door closes behind him, Geralt tucks his hand into the gap. Something just doesn’t sit well in his gut.

Mages and Blaviken. Mages and _mutants._

He waits a minute more with the door held a finger’s width open, questioning if he’s not being overly suspicious. Erring on the side of caution, he inches the door open and trots back inside.

The instant the gates click shut, the torches that line the tower walls fade to wispy white orbs. The wide array of tapestries vanish into the walls, their vibrant colors and patterns blending with the gray of the stone. Geralt runs his gloved hands through the benches that circle the courtyard. They’re worn with cracks.

Looking into the middle fountain, he watches as the pool dries up to a dusted bowl.

All of the superficial illusions of the hall fall dormant. All that’s left is a decaying tower.

That bad feeling nagging at his brain worsens. 

The ground floor has about half a dozen locked doors, of no interest to the witcher. What draws his eye away is the corridor that opens to the large spiraling staircase. By the height of the ceiling that stretches far above his head, there are no floors between the ground and the top, as well a mage likes it to be. If magic and alchemy deserve a place in the home, it is far from where bed and food can be found. It demands a place where the stench of potions can be of no bother, and where an ill-chanted spell cannot blow up precious heirlooms. Though Theramas does not look like the collecting kind. Maybe books.

He starts the long flight of stairs.

Through the gaps in the interior walls he spots large, floating wisps, magic constructs to keep the high parts of the middle chamber dimly lit. Some wisps are tied to objects—dark vials, rolled up scrolls, little bags that smell of red sandalwood. The herb is difficult to pick up normally, but there’s a concentrated quality to it that nearly makes Geralt sneeze. 

He’s used aging red sandalwood as a minor sedative before. Somehow, the knowledge doesn’t comfort him. What would Theramas need sedatives for?

‘Taming _, the humans call it.’_

He’s starting to think the humans weren’t playing around with euphemisms the way wizards do. In that case, he better climb faster. He still has a ways to go.

At the end of the first flight of stairs, Geralt reaches a circular room. There’s a wall of books to one side.

And scattered animal cages to the other. 

Kneeling beside one that’s broken up, his sharp eyes pick up rusty clumps of blood and short wiry hairs stuck to the metal. A worn blanket sits on the inside. He grabs it carefully from a corner and sniffs. 

It smells of werewolf fur and red sandalwood. But it smells old. This cage hasn’t seen an owner in months, maybe years. The werewolf’s probably found a different home since then. Or crawled into an early grave.

He’s wondering what that means—and what sort of _rehabilitation_ Theramas did to it—when a voice, dulled through the stone, startles him to standing.

“I must say, you’re quite sturdy.”

It’s warped by the stale air, but he recognizes it to be the mage. The phrasing is odd. He's sure that last word is 'sturdy'. Study how?

Geralt moves around the room, looking for a second stairway, because that sounded from above his head. 

He hears more muffled sounds, unintelligible in their volume. Whatever else Theramas says, he misses entirely in his search. 

The ceiling-high bookshelf is immovable, but the wall to the right of it looks further back than it should be, if the shelf is really fixed into the stone. Geralt touches its surface. He feels a dip and a gap just between the shelf and the wall. A breeze flows from it. He could push it ajar, though he’s sure he’s not meant to. A magic mechanism probably opens it.

With his ear pressed into the gap, he catches, “Forgive me if this is painful. I will minimize your discomfort as much as I am able to.”

“You don’t want to do this.”

That second voice—that’s _Jaskier._ Geralt would know that quaky timbre of distress anywhere. 

Oh _fuck_ tomorrow's plans. He's got questions to ask the wizard now, like why the fuck Jaskier sounds _distressed._

The stone budges on a harder push. It gives him just enough space to slither through, hissing under his breath as the two scabbards of his swords dig into his back.

He crawls silently on the stairs. Noises echo louder and clearer inside the stairwell. “Ah, I sense a strange rerveration when you speak. Trying to change my mind? That won’t work against a sorcerer. We train against mental influence. But we wouldn’t want you to keep trying.” 

Half a lap around the tower, Geralt finally sees the shadows of normal firelight ahead. He moves to standing, slowly, so as not to cause a shuffle. He hears, “Now that’s better,” and a muffled scream, like through wet cloth.

Geralt doesn’t wait. He turns the corner into the doorway.

And there’s Jaskier, strapped naked on a table with the mage hovering over him, a scalpel slicing into his collarbone. 

He stares at the scene, at the silver chain cuffs keeping Jaskier fixed in place. The room smells strongly of red sandalwood. Jaskier doesn’t seem able to lift his arms, even as the cuffs allow him some room to move. “What the fuck?”

Theramas doesn’t turn. He sighs. “You didn’t leave, I see.”

Geralt unsheathes his sword. “I said, what the _fuck,_ is this?” 

“It looks awful, I know, but I’m not hurting him.”

“You’re fucking cutting into him.”

“For a better sample. He will heal. He’s already healing.”

Geralt looks down and confirms that yes, the cut is already sealing. But that doesn’t discount from the absolute terror in Jaskier’s completely dilated pupils. He raises his sword higher. “You drugged him.”

“Ineffectively, as he is still awake,” Theramas admits. He puts the scalpel down onto a tray table, and only then turns to face the witcher. “He’s a fascinating creature. Simply _fascinating._ Half a flask of blood was barely enough to scratch the surface. I need more than blood.”

“What?” Geralt scoffs, “Deep tissue? Bone marrow? What are you looking for?”

“An answer.” The mage rounds the table so that Jaskier is between them, but even with a sword pointed at his neck, he moves unhurriedly. Geralt doesn’t follow. He stays right by the door. 

“In theory,” Theramas offers, patting Jaskier’s twitching wrist, “Mostly theory, he is undead. I did pick up traces of his human physiology, but, you see, it’s been completely _mutated_ beyond recognition. Why do you think that is, witcher? You, a mutant?”

The hand touching Jaskier flies up and a blast of lightning hits the wall. Geralt ducks just in time, protecting his face from the flying debri. 

He covers himself from inside the stairway. His sword is useless at their distance, so he sheathes it again, readying his hand for a sign instead. 

A set of footsteps moves around the room. “You are more experienced than I in the matter in which mutation occurs. Perhaps you can answer me, witcher. Say a gentleman turns undead, and in that state of heavy stress and pain, becomes malleable enough for mutation to take. What happens when he drinks a mutant’s blood?”

The sign Geralt had been preparing falls apart. _No._ What he's implying. That isn't possible. 

“You’re mad.”

The footsteps move closer. “On the contrary, I’m _enlightened._ How many mutations does a witcher like you have? How many of them are extracted and developed from monsters?” The firelight paints a shadow over the room’s entrance. “Hmm, maybe you don’t know. You’re only the experiment, not the alchemist behind the table. Though, you must know how rare it would be for a mutation that resembles a vampire to take. Perhaps there’s something unique about the circumstances of the gentleman’s turning—”

“His name is Jaskier.” Geralt grinds his teeth. The shadow moves away, and he hears the metallic clicking of utensils being picked up.

“His name is inconsequential as we currently stand.”

Theramas stays far from the door. Geralt curses him. He needs to draw him away from Jaskier before he does irreparable damage. “I thought you disapproved of cruel methods.”

“I do. Oh, don’t worry, I won’t kill him, witcher. I will take the samples I need to further study and record his physiology and rehabilitate him so he doesn’t risk harming anyone.”

“And what does ‘rehabilitate him’ _really_ mean?”

Theramas pauses then. His shadow doesn’t come back, but his voice carries out and down the stairs as if magnified by some magic trick. “Some creatures don’t take to behavioral change, or even trained suppression, so it must be forced. Humans know this well. They declaw wild cats, clip wings, remove that which becomes problematic long term. The brain is even more nuanced, but certain areas of it are responsible for quite a lot of bodily power. When a mage remains uncontrollable and their magic a harm to those around them, they must have those parts removed.”

 _Removed—_ does the mage intend to cut into Jaskier’s brain and figure out what parts stop his undesirable abilities from manifesting? 

He hears Jaskier shout again, the clink of his chain cuffs a sluggish resistance. 

Rage fills the space inside Geralt’s bones, his mind. His very soul. He steps out of cover, giving the mage the most vicious glare of his life. Fuck playing smart, he won’t allow a second more of this to go on.

“You fucking dare touch him again and I’ll kill you.”

Theramas has the gall to look affronted. “He’ll be no different from an ordinary human again.”

Not like this, Geralt thinks. 

He sends a pure wall of magic flying at the wizard. It’s caught, but the force of it still sends Theramas crashing against his many instruments. 

Geralt takes that opportunity, sprinting shortly to Jaskier and pulling the damp cloth out of his mouth.

“Geralt—”

“Hold on, I’ll break you out of these.”

The chains, being silver, snap at his witcher’s grip. If Jaskier weren’t addled, he could also probably break free of them. The silver doesn’t burn him. 

He manages to rend the two looped chains around Jaskier’s ankles when he’s floored by a gust of wind so strong it throws him flat against the wall.

Geralt makes another sign to force the wind back, but it gets lost in the looping stormwind. 

“Witcher, don’t be a fool. You will have your human back. Stop fighting.” 

“Fuck you.”

Something like a rope winds around his leg the second he tries getting up, and it sends him tumbling down the stairway. He looks down at his feet and finds an actual length of rope knotting itself around his shins. Drawing his sword again, he makes quick work of freeing himself. A silk scarf tries to take its place. He slices that to ribbons. 

His back is almost to the lower floor’s door when it slams open, in _his_ direction, nearly pinning him in the process. He takes that chance and runs through before Theramas decides it is better to trap him in the two feet wide stairwell. 

Even with metal cages being turned into long rods and nets, Geralt much prefers that than being blown up and down the stairs like a ragdoll.

“This is my tower,” the wizard booms from above and all around him, “You can’t overpower me.”

A bolt of lightning zaps the ground in front of him. It is a warning.

Theramas is right. He can’t win here. 

He needs to take him out of the tower and away from Jaskier.

It leaves him with a bitter taste in his mouth, but Geralt runs down the long flight of stairs, books and static flying hazardly behind him. He doesn’t think Theramas will stop until he’s actually out of the way, and he is proven right when the whole climb down the flight of stairs something keeps trying to immobilize him.

The ground floor of the tower looks astoundingly different upon his third visit in as many hours. The pillars of the courtyard are completely gone, the whole of the room flattened and replaced with gray grass that extends in a wide field surrounded by stone walls. It’s an illusion. The tower is not truly that wide, but Geralt can’t do anything about it beyond acknowledge the change and swear up a storm.

The tower’s gate is now a running distance away, but in a field so open, Theramas can strike at him true. 

“Shit,” Geralt whispers. He still makes a sprint for it. 

Ozone tints the air. He tastes it as it builds up to a thicker concentration. He’s only halfway through the field.

He signs stiffly with his fingers, and feels a sudden pressure encompass him head to toe. Not a second after, a bolt hits him square in the back and he stumbles, but the bolt bounces off of him and onto the ground. _Quen,_ a protective shield of sign magic, takes most of the damage.

It still leaves him feeling a little singed. 

Without stopping his sprint, he slams onto the door. The magic barrier surrounding the gate wobbles with the impact, but he just throws his shoulder into it again, aided by a second casting of _Quen._

The voice of Theramas echoes from everywhere in the wide chamber. “Witcher, what are you doing?”

He’s causing a commotion. It’s what he does best in Blaviken.

The door finally gives as he bolsters his sign and stabs his blade into the thin gap between wall and lock. It breaks both the mechanism and the spell. 

A few people cry out as he crashes through into a small crowd and onto their feet. A girl starts wailing as someone accidentally steps on her little feet. Two older men push him up onto his feet, and not kindly. 

“Get off, witcher!—Dalia, sweetie, please stop crying—What the fuck is wrong with you, white hair?!”

The gates of the tower stay open behind him. He spots the shadow of a robed man coming out, hand hovering over the splintered door. The wood trembles where it lays, and slowly, pieces of it start reassembling.

Geralt raises his sword. The people of Blaviken quiet, backing off. The girl who’d been crying, stepped on, doesn’t move.

He grabs her arm. Everyone freezes. 

“Theramas!” Geralt puts his silver near her neck. “You come out here and face me, or I’ll start cutting people down.”

He hears the whisper in his head, and it’s like a cold bucket of water poured inside his skull. 

_‘ You wouldn’t. ‘_

From the street, Geralt gives him a tooth-gaping grin, more wild animal than reasoning being. “You think the Butcher lies?”

He would not hurt a hair on the girl’s head. He would _never_ hurt any of the people that look at him with frightened and haunted stares. Even if they hated him and stoned him, and spat on the ground where Renfri died one street over— _he would not._

But Theramas doesn’t know that. He knows exactly two things about Geralt of Rivia—that he is both the Butcher and the White Wolf, and that butchers and witchers, despite the White Wolf’s glory, spare more sympathy to monsters than men.

Theramas emerges from the door. The blue of his robe fades to a foggy gray in the washed out light of day. 

“You’re more reasonable than your master,” Geralt gibes, letting the girl go run back to her parents.

“And you’re still a fool.” 

A solid bolt of lightning shaped like an arrow shoots out of the mage’s hand. It hits Geralt in his sword arm. “Fuck—” 

The blade slips out of his grasp from the startling pain. It feels like an arrow has actually penetrated his armor. 

The crowd, watching their mage fight the monster in human skin before them, starts cheering. 

“Kill him!” a woman yells from the forlay. A few brave souls join her. “Kill him, master Wizard!”

For the first time, Theramas looks at him with derision. 

_There it is,_ Geralt snarls, holding his injured arm, _the legacy of his ancient wizard rector._ Confidence and superiority, wrapped around the approval of the people.

Things never change. 

Running through the streets, Geralt dodges nearly every bolt that flies at him. A few stalls suffer explosions, both from the witcher’s signs and the sorcerer’s magic, but the humans aren’t mad at the _mage_ for it. And that’s exactly as Geralt needs it to be. Theramas doesn’t believe it a risk to chase the witcher out of town, not as the townspeople still think him their good master wizard ridding them of another monster. He needs the mage to feel sure in leaving his tower, where his magic is strongest.

There’s a muddy field of dead trees west of the town, and that’s where Geralt takes him to. A place with cover _and_ room to move, where Geralt can weave his way around an unsuspecting mage. 

He slides down a hill just outside the town’s border and stumbles on the last stretch of open land. His arm and shoulder burn like fire, the door and the mage’s assault having done their damage. But he can work with that. He has to, for Jaskier’s sake.

He’s not standing on the sidelines and letting another sorcerer make decisions for him.

His foot staggers on the last step before a blacktree, caught in a depression. Before he can get up, Theramas steps on it, catching up to him impossibly sooner than the witcher expected. He must have opened a portal, even just for the advantage of crossing a few feet. 

In the wizard’s hand is a glowing ball of blue fire.

“Well, witcher, I applaud your attempt to flee,” the mage drawls, grinding his heel. The pain of twisting his ankle flares. “But it seems you’ve met your end—”

Something howls from the dead woods.

They both stop to look to the forest. Another, deeper howl answers the first. Geralt uses that distraction to punch the leg pinning him down. It works, and he manages to crawl a few feet ahead before a hot bolt of white agony slams into his back, and he screams, bowing to the pain.

The howling grows closer.

“What is...” Theramas quiets. Geralt opens his eyes in the sudden silence.

A great black wolf prowls in front of him. It’s teeth gleam yellow as it growls, but it doesn’t pounce on him. Rather, it waits.

And then he hears it. 

“You get away from him, bastard.”

Higher up on the hill stands Jaskier, of all people. He’s naked, free of the silver chains, though they left red abrasions on his wrists.

There is absolute wrath in his bloodshot eyes. 

“You—” Theramas breaks off, glancing between him and the wolves coming into view from between the trees. “You’re standing on your own? How—”

The smile that Jaskier gives is full of jagged teeth, and his eyes take on a pink sheen.

“I’m more resilient than you thought.”

Theramas doesn’t even hesitate. He shoots the blazing blue fire in his palm at the undead vampire. 

Geralt shouts, “No!” scrambling to get his feet under himself. He doesn’t move fast enough to cast a sign to stop him. 

But the wolves do. 

The black one lunges at the mage’s arm and the fire dies down to embers. It bites down hard through muscle and bone and Theramas yowls in pain. He’s drenched with slobber and blood, and soon a second and third wolf begin circling his feet, with more coming out of the woods.

Anger curls in his magic eyes. They glow iridescent. 

He touches the wolf’s maw with his free hand and a sound like bone snapping echoes, the wolf falling to the ground, twisted on its side. The others hunch back a step, one of them yapping, growling furiously at the death of its packmate.

Theramas blows them back with a gust of cold air, his useless arm tucked close to his chest. The cobalt blue of his robe soaks in the blood, turning an ugly, mottled black and brown. Geralt thinks, _he hides needles there,_ just as he pulls one from the sleeve to send flying at the snarling wolf.

The pack howls as one, ears flattened against their skulls. None of them rises to strike a third time.

“Look—at that,” the mage utters with difficulty, “Show an animal what happens when _hgh_ , it bites, and it obeys. If only their master would be as reasonable.”

He looks to the pit of fire where he left the undead man, expecting a cowed creature learning its lesson. 

In the ashen ground stands nothing but scorch marks. 

The witcher sits back on his elbows, wincing from the pain screaming down his back. His shoulder is no better, but he needs to get up. Theramas turns to face him, pity in his eyes and a new fireball in his hand. He doesn't have time to think, to be horrified and lost, the mage is going to burn him to cinders next—

Jaskier reappears in front of him, like a ripple of waves in a calm lake. He’s crouched close to Geralt, streams of light flickering through his body. This close, he can see that Jaskier’s ears have stretched to sharp points and his fingertips into thick talons. 

An animal snarl comes out from him—from _Jaskier—_ wobbling in the air, pitching higher. 

When Theramas takes one step closer, he screams.

The pack of wolves, waiting on the command, descends on the sorcerer. _His_ screams ring louder. He tries to beat them off, shock them with bolts of lightning, but they are too numerous, and they overpower him in quick succession.

Jaskier stands. The way he moves—head hunched, claws forward, light on the balls of his feet—is nothing like Geralt has ever seen him do before. 

He moves like an animal. And when he speaks, he growls like one too.

“You would hurt my witcher.” Nails a handwidth in length trace the back of one quiet wolf, watching its brethren tear the sorcerer with their fangs. “You would _kill_ him.”

He hums and the wolves snapping around Theramas waiting their turn part for him. 

At his feet, Theramas lies a bloody mess, every one of his limbs gouged with teeth marks. His face bears three long, bloody grooves, his straw blond hair covered in red. The vampire pulls him up by his head, easily lifting him to his knees, but the mage does not have the strength to stand. He just moans, hanging limp.

“You won’t kill him,” Geralt hears the vampire whisper. 

His other clawed hand grabs the mage by a shoulder. In the time it takes for Geralt to blink, Jaskier twists his hands as far apart as they can go.

Blood spills out of the mage’s torn open neck. 

The body he drops on the ground for the wolves to devour. The head he raises above his head, and mouth open, the vampire drinks. 

After a gulp, he gags, spitting it all back out onto the grass. 

_It’s disgusting,_ Jaskier had said to him once. Blood that isn't Geralt's own is disgusting, but he doesn’t remember that, just that blood is supposed to be appetizing.

“Jaskier.” Geralt winces from all his body’s fresh aches. The tree behind him is stable, so he uses it to sit up and remove the shredded piece of his armor. “Jaskier,” he repeats a little stronger, but Jaskier doesn’t respond. His pink bloodshot eyes look to him, but it’s like the words are what catch his attention, not that he recognizes his own name.

At least the wolves don’t attack him. They have their price already. 

“Hey, come here.” The vampire drops Theramas’ head, looking at the witcher in confusion. “It tastes terrible, right? Drink here.” 

Geralt points to his sluggishly bleeding arm. The bolt that struck him clipped him, but not deeply. He’s lucky it didn’t drive through his arm like an actual arrow would have.

Jaskier returns to him. He understands _drink._

The open wound means he doesn’t need to drive his teeth in. He can just lap at the blood dripping down his elbow, with Geralt cradling his head so he stays there. 

He takes a couple of generous sips, and the bloodshot look in his eyes fades to a healthy white. 

It’s a few more licks before he starts to come back to himself. Geralt knows it when Jaskier starts shivering because he’s _naked._

“Ge-Geralt,” he stutters. His clawed hands sweep over his brow and red smears his cheek. The warmth of the blood startles Jaskier, and he starts to look at himself proper. At the gore coating him from hooked fingernails to mid-forearm. Swallowing, he gags again at the vile aftertaste in his mouth. “I...” 

Geralt takes that second to check him over. His wrists no longer hold the marks of bondage. No burns marr the expanse of his skin. It may be the fire didn’t even hurt him. Vampires are not affected by fire, much like they are not affected by the sun.

But Jaskier’s not a vampire. He’s something more.

“Are you...going to kill me?” He's something more and yet he manages to sound human, so resigned to his fate—and still so shaken by what he'd done in a fit of pure rage. Geralt can’t bear to see him so low. Not again.

“Of course I won’t.” 

Jaskier may have a mage’s blood in his hands, but he is here with him now. He didn’t lose his mind. He was only a danger to someone who posed a danger to _him_ first.

But the bard seems to shrink in on himself, not sure at all. “He hurt you.” His shaking hands clench into fists over Geralt’s still-bleeding wound. “H-he hurt us. He deserved a worse fate. Didn’t he? Gods, I just killed him. Just like that.”

“Jaskier. Don’t linger on it. You defended yourself. It, got out of hand. But did you hurt anyone reaching us?”

“Yes. No, I mean no, I didn’t. Sorry.” The bard jerks his head side to side, slapping his ears. “Give me a minute. That was...a bit much for me.”

“Just a bit,” he tries a bit lighthearted, but Jaskier doesn’t pick up on it. He’s watching the wolves pick up pieces of shapeless flesh and take those pieces back to the woods. 

“Let’s go," Geralt tries next. "Uh, help me up.” His ankle still stings like a right bitch.

The task seems to put some awareness back into the bard's eyes. “Yeah, ‘course.” 

The bard lifts him up in short order, easily. Geralt spares a second to feel embarrassed at his state, but he’s also not the one nude in a field of gore and ash.

“Let’s get our things, get you some clothes.” Geralt isn’t sure if they won’t be done before an angry mob runs them out of town. Not after the spectacular show of savagery he performed in front of Irion’s tower in order to goad the mage out.

He sighs long and weary. He knew coming to Blaviken was a bad idea. And he was right. So much worse than a bad idea.

Jaskier hums, but he doesn’t move them.

“Jaskier. Let’s go.”

“Oh, yes. Sorry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Pollicitation_ , under old Roman law, was a promise made that was not accepted by the “promisee”, but still enforced under legislation.

**Author's Note:**

> Updates/announcements to come by my [tumblr @seventfics](https://seventfics.tumblr.com).


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